WolfStock1

9 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

That's not going to stop it. What will stop it is climate engineering which is already underway and which will rapidly accelerate beginning in 2030.

 

Yes but ignorant people dont even realize they are ignorant. 

 

He's willfully ignorant. The fossil fuel cartel loves that that's why it was so easy for them to engage in a 50 year cover up. 

 

Clearly billion dollar disasters are on a rapid rise.

 

He is an entitled ignorant fool who makes no sense and doesn’t know or care about what's going on in the world.

 

And there is more to the planet than one's own property which deniers dont get. 

 

This planet can't support 8 billion as it is NOW AND we see evidence of that everywhere.

 

The fossil fuel cartels have been trying to cover it up since the 1970s.

 

It's not just coastal areas billion dollar disasters are on a rise everywhere. Exxon began the cover-up in the 1970s we have proof of that.

 

 

This is a major failing of the democratic system.  In addition to stripping first amendment rights from corporations and preventingbsuper mergers like Exxon Mobil we also need to stop letting ignorant people vote. Doing those two things will fix most issues.

I love Star Trek but perhaps those aliens should have been annihilated by The Federation.

 

 

You are completely wasting your time with a fool who actually thinks fossil fuels are a good thing. The fossil fuel cartels are directly involved with the sixth mass extinction in the planet's history. They aren't the only ones but they are a major culprit. The polar bears who are cannibalizing each other haven't even been brought up yet.

 

 

Instead do something worthwhile and check out my conversation with AI that I posted in the science forum.

 

 

It depends on where you live. If you live in an island nation in the Pacific and must migrate you better bet it's an existential threat.  That's why mass migration is now happening. 

 

This is just the beginning the fact is this horrible event should never have been allowed to happen.in the first place. 

 

 

You are *so* brainwashed.   I would urge to be skeptical of information you receive, looking into the veracity of it and thinking about all the factors involved, rather just accepting what you're being fed without question.

But again - you're ignoring my statements, in your blindness.    Let me state once again:

I AM NOT CLAIMING THAT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT IMPACTING THE WORLD

Somehow you keep forgetting that, and trying to assert that I'm making claims that I am not.   You are arguing against a strawman.

Have fun.

4 hours ago, GaWx said:

What do you think about the possibility of unmodeled negative feedbacks eventually stopping the warming and thus causing at least the most extreme climate model solutions to end up being way overdone? Is this a realistic possibility?

Why would a negative feedback be required to stop warming?   Warming is by definition not a state of equilibrium.  Cessation of warming would only require removal of positive influence, not the introduction of a negative influence.

Specifically - at some point we're going to run out fossil fuels to burn (albeit slowly).   Unless I miss my guess - that will result in CO2 growth in the atmosphere slowing to a halt, and then probably reversing some as it gets re-absorbed by existing plant life.   (That offset is already taking place to some extent vis a vis the greening that's being seen; though the effects are small right now).

That aside - surely you understand that there are all kinds of as-yet-unmodeled effects that can happen, right?   Despite the growth of AI - we are not yet omniscient.  

(Of note: Your question isn't actually relevant to the question at hand, since we're talking about world death, and even the most extreme models e.g. RCP 8.5 don't call for that.     I don't believe *any* models call for that.)

1 hour ago, Brewbeer said:

this is just more more distraction, and no one here is disagreeing that fossil fuels have contributed to human progress, that's just more distraction

please stay on topic:  the continued use of fossil fuels is progressively impacting climate and ecosystems and accelerating the rate of climate change, and what we are going to do about it (hint on the second part: not much)

Well except that wasn't the topic, if you follow the discussion back.   The topic was existential crisis, which is not the same as progressive or even accelerating levels of impacts.    ("Exist" of course being the root of "existential") 

To equate those two would require a third assumption - that the progression would either continue forever, or that it would reach a pace where adaptation is impossible.   The first is physically impossible.   For the latter - given the adaptability level of humans - our ability to live in both in the arctic and the extreme tropics, and the fact that earth has transitioned through *all* extremes several times in the past, with life still thriving, it will certainly not be happening.   

3 hours ago, Brewbeer said:

this is part of the frustration - focusing on minutia to distract from the elephant 

There are many elephants here.

In this case I'm just giving an example of how the world benefits from fossil fuel use.   Multiply that times a couple billion, and you can see how it has brought prosperity - including things like the ability for humanity to help the world in various ways - including helping to do things like preserve endangered species.   And... doing things like flying hundreds of jets each year to climate conferences (?)

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

Per the caption title "this data should not be used assess the number of events because of changes in data reporting".

Yes - specifically referring to the pre-1990s period when a lot of disasters went unreported, due to lack of detection (satellites) or mechanisms (internet).  (it's talked about elsewhere on the page that's from)

Surely you wouldn't propose that detection/reporting rate has gone *down* would you?   What would be the reason for such a thing?

Re: insurance - obviously the financial damages from disasters has gone up tremendously.   

And FWIW - I wouldn't propose that there isn't at least *some* increase in actual disaster levels in the works due to CC (despite the chart I posted); it's hard to tease out the level due to the noise of natural random variation.   I'm just illustrating that it's clear that there's not some kind of world-threatening trend here, by any stretch.

16 minutes ago, chubbs said:

You are handwaving. The number and intensity of climate-related disasters is increasing.

It is?

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

We've gotten much better at avoiding deaths in natural disasters through prediction and warnings. The number and intensity of climate-related disasters is increasing. The death toll from natural disasters this year could be relatively high due to the European heat wave and the Nepal landslide.  We'll see when the numbers come out next year.

The increased economic damage is due to the huge increase in building on the coasts, in particular of luxury properties.   I lived right on the coast in both FL and CA over the past few decades, and have seen in firsthand.    Much of it also is due to generally increased economic prosperity (and population increase), and due to inflation.   As your economy grows, you're going to have a lot more stuff that can get damaged.

Not an indicator of "world death" but actually the opposite in fact.

Re: European heat wave

Much of that could have been prevented if a lot more people had air conditioning, as they do in places like the US.

10 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 
 What are your thoughts about the horrible 2023 FL Keys bleaching event caused by prolonged record hot SSTs in the low 90s? Key West buoy hit an amazing 92.8 during the late afternoon of 8/2/23! Several of us here followed this disaster and posted about it:

 

 The devastation there was amplified by the persistent heat as measured by the amazingly high DHW:

Two species were nearly wiped out! The good news though is that they saved genetic material from them thank goodness:

However, even these coral species are not entirely lost.

During the heat wave, scientists saved about 150 genotypes, a.k.a. genetic material, of elkhorn coral and 250 genotypes of staghorn. They’re stored in biobanks at the Mote laboratory and The Reef Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. The material will be used to propagate and reintroduce staghorn and elkhorn corals once conditions are more favorable.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/two-florida-coral-species-were-nearly-wiped-out-heat-wave

My thoughts are - that was a nasty weather event; I'm glad those coral species were saved, and I'd be willing to bet that a lot of fossil-fuel-burning boats were involved in the process of recovery.

12 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I didn't shift anything. 

Nor have I been in your debate, guy -  merely made the observation that people have different ideas on the nature of what a existential threat is - time and imminence being a part of that.  

By the way, you are factually wrong much of the time.

"- it has very much *not* been due to global warming; "   garbage semantics.

Climate-related die-offs are happening now.  If you want to dodge acknowledgement by saying they’re not all caused by climate change alone that's elementary anyway, but doesn't work to abase the former. I also said the toxicity ( meaning pollution) plays a roll.  Either way, this can and should all be under anthropomorphic activity. That's not 'goal posts', that's intelligence.  It is divisive to attempt to do otherwise, that or ignorance, anyway, because the use of fossil fuels for combustion creates toxicity, in conjunction green-housing... But as far as temperature specifically, a clear current example is coral reefs:  NOAA reports that the fourth global coral bleaching event affected about 84.4% of the world’s coral reef area with bleaching-level heat stress between January 2023 and September 2025.  Plus, I spoke of diasporas in that, too - which is species migrations... which is evidentiary supporting the same notion. There's plenty of others, and I'm not going to do the petty low-brow game of citing them for you - go do the research.

More broadly, warming and extreme weather are already affecting wildlife and this is just flat empirical fact.   Habitat loss, disease, and other pressures are scienced and heavily papered. 

 

Re: reefs

Generally hitting record levels these days, e.g.:

https://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-condition-summary-2023-24

There's only been significant record-keeping since the 1980's, so we don't know what the trend is, or whether or not bleaching events that we've seen are normal vs CC-caused or not.

Certainly not seeing any "death of the world" trending there.

Re:  Extinctions - let's look at that, shall we?

Here's a database of recent extinctions:

https://recentlyextinctspecies.com/database/most-recent-global-extinctions

Starting from the top:

Achatinella apexfulva - land snail; native to Hawaii; made extinct by introduction of predator by the rosy wolfsnail, deforestation, and the Jackson's chameleon.  Not climate change.

Ecnomiohyla rabborum - Rabb’s fringe-limbed treefrog; made extinct by chytrid fungus.  Not climate change.

Microcolpia parreyssii parreyssii - Parreys' thermal snail; existed in only one tiny locaion, made extinct by groundwater extraction.   Not climate change.

etc. etc.   (not about to look up the details on the whole list)

Wikipedia list of extinct species:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_extinct_species

Cursory search - could not find a single one made extinct by climate change.    There are thousands of them listed though, so maybe there are some I didn't see.

The vast majority of extinctions happening, by far, are due to things *other* than climate change.   Hunting, fishing, habitat loss due to deforestation, introduction of new predators, etc etc.   Most of these are human-caused, yes, but not climate change.

Bottom line: Fearmongering.

There is no "world death" looming, of any sort.   At least not due to climate change.

Going to put this out there.

I've always been a bit of a weather nerd (thus generally enjoying this site) - many in my family are (though just casual).    I've generally had a big respect for the meteorology profession, and my son is in fact now starting college in meteorology.    But I have to say - some of this is starting to make me lose a lot of respect for the profession; the disregard for solid scientific principles in favor of bending to the winds of societal fearmongering.

I'm sure it's not true of a lot of people in the profession; hopefully not most.   It's just dismaying to see how prevalent it is.

</soapbox>

57 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

The reality vs mere notion of an 'existential crisis' is more debatable than a bullet point.  No question....  With the ambrosia  of empirical data that points to a crisis, a crisis that is geophysically determined by taking said data and implementing in physical/mathematical laws of nature ...  no one can say there is no existential crisis with any assurance - in fact, quite the contrary.

However, one may personally define crisis differently than the next person.

Define crisis:

is there a false dawn at the 3am as a fiery wall is imminently cresting the horizon in 20 minutes?  No   

are we in a proven multi-species die off that is presently being considered a mass extinction event ? Yes    

The problem with acknowledging the latter is in part misrepresentation. That's the problem with "any" misrepresentation - however... I would argue that there are those choosing the wrong information to be true relative to that uncertainty. Because in the whole of it, there is both truth and falsity. People could and should choose information based upon some ability to objectively filtrate either content -

As an aside ... there's also a gleaming logical flaw in denialism. If the price of denying is death... why take the risk?  You cannot circumstantially be more certain in your denial than is the science in the other direction.  So the cost of doing nothing, for what? so we don't have to change... It baffles the mind that this is a position at all.

 

You keep shifting around the goalposts, even in your own posts.

What kind of "death" are you talking about here?   Because each type is hugely different.    When you're talking about "world destiny" (your original)  words, are you talking about:

• Death of humanity?
• Death of a bunch of non-human species?
• Death of "the world" - encompassing all of the above (a literal wasteland)?

Each of these is *massively* different in their proposed causes, timeframes, scales, etc.   Your term "world destiny" certainly sounds like the first or the latter, not just the death of a few species.

While there are certainly a lot of species dying off in recent years - it has very much *not* been due to global warming; it's generally been due to habitat removal; in particular things like overfishing and overhunting (generally under control now), and forest clearing due to harvesting, farming, and development (still ongoing; though improving somewhat).

On the latter - it's worth noting the massive acreage of forests that will be need to be cleared (or not allowed to regrow) to meet solar farm proposals; e.g. the 277,000-acre proposal in VA.

If you're talking death of humanity - I refer to my previous chart, among other hopefully obvious things.  The use of fossil fuels very much *lessens* the level of human deaths, in many, many ways.

If things like king tides in Miami are such a big danger - wouldn't one expect the number of annual deaths from natural disasters to be steadily rising - not falling?   Why aren't we seeing news reports of all these deaths being caused by these king tides?    That seems... mysterious.

17 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Well finally some sense. .

Nothing that I posted there is misaligned with any of my previous posts, at least that I'm aware of. 

That's another disturbing trend I see.   Anyone who tries to be pragmatic (e.g. playing devil's advocate with some assertions, as I am wont to do) is labeled "DENIER!!!".  It's why a lot of people see religious / cultish aspects in the movement.- regular attempts to label those who don't agree whole cloth with the most extreme positions as heretics.

Look - I am *not* attempting to assert that CO2, vis a vis fossil fuel burning, is not a long term problem.    It is.   

My assertions are the following:

• That it is not an existential crisis, or anything close to it
• That our policy efforts to solve the problem have been and continue to be misguided; specifically in that they a) have less positive impact in fixing the problem than most people think, and b) have more negative impact than most people think - both economically and environmentally

17 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Plus... if fossil fuel really is that impossible to get away from then we are assured of two world destinies:

an ontological death

an actual die-off

 

Wow.... just.... wow.

Listen to your yourself.

I'll just put this here, and let you struggle with your existential crisis.

Let me know when that trend starts upward due to our fossil fuel burning, so I can... run somewhere or something.

17 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Explain to me how a windmill kills whales. This is complete nonsense. We just had an enormous wind farm built off the coast here on Long Island, and the amount of actual whale activity had increased by orders of magnitude in the last decade. I have never in 28 years of ocean life gaurding spotted more whales then I did this summer.


.

So your rebuttal is to latch onto one tiny bit in what I say, and misrepresent it?   I did not say a windmill can kill a whale.   That's the kind of mis-reading that causes people to misunderstand things, like the actual effects of climate change.

1 hour ago, Brewbeer said:

lol at wall street journal opinion articles; everyone has opinions, but just because someone typed their opinion, and you believe it, does not make it true 

here are some facts:  link and link

and if you want to look at "actual" numbers, you need to include operating costs including fuel inputs over the life of the facility, not just cost to build; and for nuclear, you need to include the cost of long term storage and disposal of radioactive components from the plant operations

if you want try again and this time include operational costs to support your opinion, please do so

Yes perhaps, but one would also need to include the costs for lower lifespan of solar and wind, the costs for recycling the very hard-to-recycle materials, the environmental costs of the things that can't be recycled (e.g. carbon-fiber blades),  the costs for acquiring the land (including the huge amount of community-by-community fights that inevitably happens), the environmental costs of dead and disturbed wildlife - birds, whales, etc. (how to quantify?), and of cleared balsa forests, the cost for additional land and steel required for additional transmission lines, etc. etc.

Also keeping in mind that this does not scale linearly.  As the scale of projects get larger and larger (e.g. Spanberger's proposal for 277,000 acres of solar in Virginia), it drives the costs of material - e.g. silver for solar panels - up, due to their relative scarcity.

These things are not nearly as simple as people make them out to be, due to the immense amount of factors, which is why you have to look at the bigger picture, such as what's been happening in Europe (and to a smaller extent the US).

I mean - just step back and think about it.   Electricity prices (especially in Europe) have been rising - faster than inflation.   Is it because of rising oil prices?   No - it can't be, because we don't use oil for generating electricity.   Is it because of the price of coal?   No - that's generally been flat (save for a big spike in 2022) since 2008 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-prices.     Is it because of the price of Natural gas?   No - that's been *down* the last couple of decades:  https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm.    Why then?   Why have electricity prices been going up so much?   Is it just coincidence that it happens to be happening at the same time as we've pushing for replacement of fossil plants with renewable?   No.

Keep in mind that this is *despite* the money that's been flowing into the renewable energy industry, vis a vis our taxes.   Without that electricity prices would be even higher.

(and lest one be tempted to blame the price increase on increased demand from AI and data centers - keep in mind that the electricity prices started getting higher long before that recent demand spike)

P.S. that Fresh Energy link is from what is essentially a renewable energy lobbying organization - extremely biased.   The EIA link doesn't really provide any useful information for the conversation.

2 hours ago, Brewbeer said:

false statement

the true drivers of increased energy and electricity costs are increasing costs to maintain and expand an aging grid, the increasing price for fossil fuels, the increase in energy demand, and a general utility regulatory structure that prioritizes investment in massive power plants that have long capital pay-back periods

and let's not forget about the abysmally expensive energy policy choices implemented by the current administration

Look at the data.   Europe in general has had a heavier push for renewables, and has seen higher rises in electricity prices than has the US as a result.   It's clear.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/climate-policy-reality-europe-energy-costs-gas-coal-11632754849

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/europes-green-energy-rush-slashed-emissionsand-crippled-the-economy-e65a1a07

etc. etc.

Don't just look at the costs of individual projects and "peak output" which is what's often widely touted.   Peak output is meaningless by itself.   The problem is that renewables can't exist in a vacuum - they are too unreliable.   Thus *even* if renewables could be less expensive than fossil on a per-KW basis (it generally isn't) - the overall *solution* is more expensive, because the fossil cannot be removed - it has to also stay in place to pick up the slack when unreliable wind and solar aren't present.

Taking a specific case near where I live.   There's an 800-acre 100 MW solar plant being installed right here (northern VA).   Cost is $200 million.   Since the capacity factor of solar here is about 20%, that makes it roughly $10M per MW.   Compare that with a natural gas plant just down the road - 774 MW (about 540 MW w/capacity factor of 70%), and a cost of $778M.    Thus it cost about 4x as much to build - but will be producing about 28x the electricity, and much more reliably so.

Then compare with Kemmerer SMR being built in Wyoming.  Cost is estimated to be $4B; will be putting out about 345 MW.   Thus will be about $11.5M per MW - about the same cost as solar.   And that's the *first* SMR being built - costs of future ones will come down a lot.

Look at the numbers.   Look at the *actual* numbers, not the theoretical ones.

Look at the constant stream of renewable projects that have to be canceled to high costs - either during construction or during maintenance.   Look at the interplay between sources of energy.   Look at geography.   Look at weather.   Look at where people live, and what it takes to get electricity from there to here.  Look at infrastructure.   Look at land space usage.  Look at materials usage (rare earths, silver, etc. etc.).    Look at life spans, cycles, and recycling of materials used for generation.   Etc. etc.   

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

Nobody thought it would be easy to replace fossil fuels. Ten years ago low carbon emission scenarios depended heavily on carbon capture, nuclear and biofuels. It has proven difficult to advance those technologies. On the other hand solar, batteries and EV have advanced much faster than anticipated and it is easier to replace fossil fuels with those technologies than anticipated.

Your views on the cost of renewables are outdated. The energy cost increases we are seeing are due to fossil fuels. Supply disruptions and the inability to meet increasing demand in a timely manner being the biggest problems. Energy costs would be even higher without renewable, batteries and EV. Countries that have to import fossil fuels are trying to find a cheaper more reliable alternative. Even in Texas, where local natural gas is plentiful, met 80% of new power demand with solar last year. 

There are many reasons for our energy cost increases, but the vast majority has been renewables.  There is reams of data and articles on the subject, going back to before the current supply disruptions.

Posting data from ERCOT is cherry picking.  Texas is the one state that has the best blend of geographical conditions for wind and solar.  As I say - low hanging fruit.   Now do the same PJM (largest grid) and others.   

It's kind of like when people point out how Norway is so green with their renewables - well duh; they live in a population-sparse country with tons of mountains - perfect conditions for hydro.  Most of the rest of the world doesn't have that geographical luxury.

6 hours ago, chubbs said:

Yes trends don't change that rapidly. Also CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. As long as CO2 emissions increase, even very slowly as they have in the past few years, the rate of CO2 increase in the atmosphere also increases.  To see a decrease in the rate of CO2 accumulation, need to see a decrease in emissions and that hasn't happened through 2025. This year CO2 emissions are projected to decrease slightly, but emissions are still higher than they were 10 and 20 years ago.  To see a decrease in CO2 accumulation in your chart, CO2 emissions would need to flat line or decrease for a longer period of time. 

You'll see the impact of emission changes more easily in this chart. CO2 emissions and CO2 accumulation increased steadily through the 2010s. Renewables only began to move the needle in this decade. This years CO2 increase, when posted, will be the smallest in 15 years. If CO2 emissions flat line or decrease slowly in the remainder of this decade, then decade average emissions will still be larger than the 2010s. So would expect a small increase in the decade average CO2 accumulation which would set us up for a decrease in the CO2 accumulation rate in the 2030s. 

Like I said above don't want to minimize the size of the problem. We are fighting growth in energy use, the long life of fossil-fuel emission sources, and the persistence of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

 

I think you're generally reinforcing my point, which is that this thing is much harder than most people thought it would be, and we're making less progress than people thought we would even given the increase in the use of renewables that we've seen.

You say "Renewables only began to move the needle in this decade.", but there is no "this decade" in that chart - there is only "this year", which happens to be an extreme outlier w/El Nino, showing anything other than the same trend upward.   I think that's likely the main factor, and not primarily due to energy policy.   Only time will tell though, in the years ahead.    If it's truly due to energy policy then we should see a continued bending-down of the curve.

My additional assertion would be - this is also turning out to be more economically disruptive than anticipated; vis a vis the increases we've seen in electricity prices, and the resulting economic headwinds that have been experienced, in particular by countries that have had more aggressive renewable policies.

On 10/10/2026 at 6:28 AM, chubbs said:

No inconsistency, the CO2 growth rate has slowed in the past decade as the growth in CO2 emissions has slowed. The CO2 growth rate this year is unusually low. Note however that It is too early to tell how much of this years decrease is emission-related as there are large year-to-year variation in CO2 sinks.  

Renewables/batteries/EV will have a much bigger impact on CO2 emissions in the future than in the past. Renewables/EV were uncompetitive and a small fraction energy use a decade ago. Now they are competitive in many markets and capturing almost all the growth in global energy use. The cost advantage vs fossil fuels will only increase with time leading to increased market penetration. 

I don't want to minimize the problem however. CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere and there is continuing strong global growth in energy use. The CO2 growth rate won't begin to decline until non-fossil energy captures all the growth in energy use and begins shrinking the population of older fossil fuel burning units.

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2026/10/04/co2-growth-and-el-nino/

 

I'm not seeing any slowing in the growth rate:

(black line is a straight line)

There *might* be a down year this year, but that's clearly just noise if so.  Trends like this don't change that rapidly.  Even the early 90's apparent flattening was clearly just a noise fluke.

I'm sensing a cognitive disconnect here.   We keep hearing about supposedly-good shifts in CC trends, for years now, and yet this most-important trend  - the end result - seems to be unaffected by these shifts:

2 hours ago, Brewbeer said:

unskilled labor in the US is not expensive and our environmental and human rights protections have been substantially degraded over the past 2 years under a similarly tyrannical regime

the petroleum business receives vastly bigger subsidies than renewables

no it's not, i live in a house that has a solar energy system on the roof that produces more electricity on average than I use

wind farms can be built near the coast; the coasts are where population is most concentrated

You're wrong on pretty much all that.

 - China's labor costs are roughly 1/3 that of the US.   And there is no such thing as "unskilled labor" any more - any thing that used to be unskilled is done by machines now.

 - China's environmental policies have generally been way worse than the US.   They're doing things that in no way would be feasible on the US - displacing cities and filling valleys to build dams, thousands of square miles of solar panels in wetlands and lakes, transmission lines that run all over without community pushback, etc. etc. 

 - Renewables have gotten vastly more subsidies on a per-unit-of-energy basis than fossil fuels, which is what counts.

 - While wind farms *can* be built near the coast - they provide tiny amounts of energy and at huge environmental and economic costs, which is why so many projects have been canceled lately, and why you see numbers like 2.3% for the PJM region, even though it abuts  the coast.   The only region that's gotten any kind of bang-for-the-buck on offshore wind is places Denmark and the North Sea, because they've got the perfect geographical conditions for it there.   The rest of the world not so much.

 - Can't speak to your house situation, since there are a host of untold factors (e.g. your location etc).   But I suspect if you took at honest look at all the factors, including things maintenance and replacement costs (not just your system but the whole roof), and subsidies - you'd find it's not as cost-advantageous as you think.   Also you're talking one tiny part of overall energy consumption - a house.   That doesn't help things like factories, aviation, commercial transportation, etc. that use lots of fossil fuels.   And it doesn't help the 95% or so of people who have living conditions that aren't amenable to rooftop solar, like non-south-facing houses, and multi-story apartments - virtually anything with a city.

You've bought into all the green lobby talking points.  You need to look under the hood more at the whole story.

4 hours ago, chubbs said:

Agree that we aren't going to reach net zero by 2050s on our current trajectory. Not even close. But that isn't because renewables/batteries/EV can't replace a significant fraction of the fossil fuels used today by then. Its a question of political will not technology.

Solar and wind grew 3X faster last year than nuclear did in its best year ever 40 years ago. Energy density doesn't translate into cost or offset other negative aspects. I'd love to see more nuclear but what is going to change to improve nuclear's trajectory?

 

 

Yes and the vast majority of that was low-hanging fruit - in rural areas of a tyrannical country - China, where they have cheap labor and little regard for the environment or human rights.

Here in the rest of world though things aren't so easy.

As an example - here's the mix for the past month for PJM interconnect - the largest electrical grid in the US:

https://www.gridstatus.io/live/pjm

Only 2.6% was wind, and 3.7% solar.   The vast majority is natural gas, nuclear, and coal.   

This is after several decades of big subsidies for renewables - still only 6% of the mix, in the largest grid in the country.

Why, may you ask?   Because a lot of people live here.   

It's just really hard to put solar and wind where people live.   Because as I say - it take a lot of room, and a lot of resources.   And people don't like it when your replace their local forests and farmlands with fields full of man made industrial stuff.

14 hours ago, chubbs said:

Your chart shows a big improvement in coal's trajectory, from exponential increase to flat. Without renewables coal use today would be much higher, mainly in China and India, who are both adopting renewables aggressively. Furthermore we would be locked in to a dystopian future of increasing coal and fossil use. Now that renewables and batteries have reached economic scale, growth should continue, enabling a peaking of fossil fuel use in the near future.  A more rapid turn down is feasible with stronger policy and/or continuing fossil fuel supply problems. That's what gives me hope.  Of course my hope may be misplaced, we will see.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news then - coal's of course not the only fossil fuel in play:

Net zero by 2050's not looking so likely.

IMO the *only* thing that really has real potential to bend that curve down is nuclear - not solar, not wind, not hydro.   Those can make dents, but only small ones.

Physics - specifically energy density - really, really matters.   If you don't have density you have to make up for it with size - but you can only go so big before you start running into problems.

11 hours ago, chubbs said:

on an energy trajectory without hope.

 

Without hope of what?

Re: the chart - that's only for electricity production.   Now do *all* energy, and in nominal not percentage terms, which is what really matters.

I'll start with coal, the use of which isn't actually going down: