In other news…"Ten Reasons Why Fracking is (not) Doomed"

I wonder how History will judge the wisdom of Prof Cole – a Historian?

It is amazing me that a history professor feels he has enough of a grasp of energy policy that he can publish such a naïve post on energy. Middleton does a great job of dissecting the inaccuracies and doesn’t even point out what I think is the greatest fallacy of utility scale renewables. In order to make up for its intermittent nature you not only have to build the renewables but you also have to build either a storage system and a heck of a lot of transmission capacity to get the diffuse renewables to load centers or you have to build natural gas backup facilities. On the basis of my wallet alone I prefer to just build the natural gas facilities. I don’t think there is any way utility scale renewables will work but could accept using solar for local scale applications such as hot water heat and personal electricity because that would shave the peak energy use. Because the wind doesn’t blow at peak loads it has no value.

I love fracking.
But i also love PV panels at right price. I cant see why not use both, and be happy over lower prices for both gas and PV panels.

You left out – I think – the back up generation for when the sun don’t shine …
Also – seems the electrical grid does OK at distributing that dirty old coal and NatGas’ electricity …
“Green” math is always funny …

Hi David,
Your post provides balance to Professor Cole’s article. I would like to add that Real Clear Energy itself is an excellent aggregator, with a good mix of links to technical articles, as well as policy articles with a broad range of viewpoints.

BTW, Fracking processes have been developed that don’t use water for the fracking fluid. They use propane and butane instead. So objections to fracking based on the difficulty of disposing used fracking fluids are now moot-there’s no toxic wastewater to dispose of. The propane is simply recovered as part of the gas production of the well.
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120415/waterless-fracking-method-propane-gasfrac-bypass-new-york-ban-hydraulic-fracturing-tioga-county
Waterless Fracking Method Could Sidestep NY Gas Drilling Ban
A plan to extract shale gas and oil from 135,000 acres in Tioga County, N.Y., could break through the state’s hydraulic fracturing moratorium, because the wells would be fracked not with water but with liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, a mixture of mostly propane.
—

Worthwhile read on the fracking revolution from a optimistic *gasp* lefty:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/07/28/the-energy-revolution-4-hot-planet/
Also – peak Windex.

Perhaps the good history professor has a grant of some kind which is dependent on finding a solution to AGW or perhaps it is his intro to applying for a grant. As a history professor I suggest he study the downfall of Detroit or some other great event in human history as did Gibbons.

I fear stupidity, co-dependence, gullibility and the madness of crowds more than anything else. The mob is dangerous.

I usually dont comment but I had to on this…
If fracking doesnt hurt drinking water then what happen to those peoples water to make it catch on fire, turn brown, smell, make animals sick and be generally undrinkable? You must be saying that the peoples water was like that before fracking and they are lying…
I generally like the comments here but as a energy scientist/miner the comments about fracking not being harmful just dont make sense. Pumping pertroleum into the ground is bound to have side effects. Just like the Gulf accident was essentially harmless.
From Wikievil…
“In April 2012, scientists reported finding alarming numbers of mutated crab, shrimp and fish they believe to be the result of chemicals released during the oil spill.[31] Tar balls continue to wash up along the Gulf coast two years after the spill began. Studies show the tar balls contain the deadly bacteria Vibrio vulnificus[32][33] In April 2012, oil was found dotting 200 miles of Louisiana’s coast.[34] ”
I think AGW is a sham because that viewpoint is supported by science just like the rest of my opinions(I hope). Fracking is inherantly bad and we dont need it as a source of energy. It is the energy companies just trying to make a profit.
Really even solar and wind power are bloated and passe, and subject to crony capitalism(Solyndra?)…
But there is something beyond all of that that is cheap, safe and clean.
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions(LENR) is the next energy source. Look up E-Cat, Defkion or Brillouin.
Brillouin: “Understanding How LENR Works Will Enable Us to Be First”
http://pesn.com/2012/04/19/9602078_Brillouin–Understanding_How_LENR_Works_Will_Enable_Us_to_Be_First/

I was hoping the Olympic flame would be solar powered this year (so we could watch them pull out the diesel generators). Great Article DM!

Brant Ra says:
July 31, 2012 at 7:48 pm

I usually dont comment but I had to on this…
If fracking doesnt hurt drinking water then what happen to those peoples water to make it catch on fire, turn brown, smell, make animals sick and be generally undrinkable? You must be saying that the peoples water was like that before fracking and they are lying…

Methane is a flammable gas that is formed in one of two ways. First, it can be produced by bacteria during the decomposition of organic matter. This is the process that creates the methane found in landfills, swamps (called swamp gas), and in the intestines of cattle and other animals.
…
The second way methane can be formed is through the thermal decomposition of organic matter under high temperatures and pressures. Methane created by this thermal process is called “thermogenic” methane. Thermogenic methane is created when organic matter is buried deep underground by the accumulation of more and more sediment under the right circumstances.
…
Biogenic methane and thermogenic methane molecules are chemically the same, but scientists can tell the difference between the two
…
All carbon atoms have the same chemical properties, but a small fraction of carbon atoms have a different number of neutrons in the atomic nucleus than do most carbon atoms. Because the fraction of carbon atoms that have the “odd” number of neutrons is different for thermogenic and biogenic methane, scientists can tell the difference between the two types of methane by using isotopic analysis.
…
The methane recovered in natural gas drilling is thermogenic, not biogenic. Thus, the presence of biogenic methane in a water well generally would not be caused by natural gas drilling, whereas the presence of thermogenic methane might be caused by drilling activity (though in some places, thermogenic natural gas naturally seeps to the earth’s surface, so that the presence of thermogenic methane in a water well is not sufficient by itself to prove that oil and gas activity is the cause).
Gasland discussed three water wells located in Colorado, and also discussed two additional places in Colorado where gas was seeping to the surface in the West Divide Creek area. The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the arm of state government that regulates the oil and gas industry, investigated the contamination and has posted a report of its findings on its website. Through testing, the Commission conclusively established that three of the five locations (two of the water wells and one of the seeps) contained biogenic methane that was unrelated to oil and gas activity.
Of the remaining two locations, the water well contained both biogenic and thermogenic methane, while the seep contained thermogenic methane. That left the question of what caused thermogenic methane to contaminate the water well and the seep. The Commission concluded that oil and gas activity was the cause, but that the contamination had not been caused by hydraulic fracturing. Rather, the problem had been caused by improper well construction (the casing and cementing of the natural gas wells).

http://www.oilgaslawbrief.com/hydraulic-fracturing/hydraulic-fracturing-and-gasland-separating-fact-from-fiction/

Without trying to refute everything that is posited by Mr. Middleton about the anti-fracking article, we can agree that the only reason fracking may slow down may be the economy not most of the points in the anti-fracking article.
But, the anti solar diatribe is just that, a diatribe and has no basis in reality. The $.50/watt panel cost figure is from NREL and looks like it will easily be achieved by 2016. Our utility has a customer in 2012 installing an almost 1 MW solar project using $1.10/watt Korean (not Chinese) panels. The total all in cost for this project is about $3.80/watt (Capex costs) yielding a levelized cost of about $.12 per kWh depending on the interest rate utilized. This project is about 50% roof and 50% on carports which add additional costs (factored into the $3.80/watt). Residential rooftop projects are being built for about $4.50-$5.50 all in per watt today and our customers are being quoted around $.12/kWh ($.04/kWh below PG&E average prices) with a small escalator for 15-20 years (these costs do include the investment tax credit). Additionally, local solar projects avoid the $.01-.02/kWh CAISO transmission costs. All the numbers and charts about solar being too costly are just obfustication, or maybe coal industry propaganda?
Solar will reach a par price with grid electricity because the economy will hopefully grow again and natural gas prices can’t stay below costs indefinitely. Even though gas prices are very low, the current electric market is as low now as it was high about five years ago.
The CAISO market prices are very low because of low natural gas prices (due to the fracking) and because of the recession which has hugely reduced demand.
Regarding the solar window film, you can be sure that a future Title 24 standard will mandate its installation on south facing windows much as insulation in walls has been required. No one will complain if the film is based on infrared, doesn’t block vision, and is reasonably priced.
Wind is a power source that is not as versatile as solar even though it is currently cheaper. It is harder to site and often generates at night which if opposite of the standard load profile.
There is agreement on nuclear in Japan because wind in Japan won’t impact fracking.
But Mr. Middleton’s response should have been to raise LFTR (liquid fueled thorium reactor) as a long term solution to electric power needs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA
As once through cooling (OTC) and coal plants reach the end of their lives, they will be replaced with natural gas plants (both combined cycle and reciprocating engines) and renewables from biomass, solar, and geothermal. It will be a combination of all sources but will not end fracking as written in Real Clear Energy article. On the other hand, renewables will be a large portion of the electric mix until LFTR is fully developed (hopefully not by the Chinese).
Finally, congratulations to Anthony and the co-authors on their new paper. As one who plotted the temperatures of the rural Central Valley and found no warming trend and looked at the photos and info from the surface stations project, this writer began to question the global warming religion several years ago.

And while the idea of natural gas seeps is still fresh…
From: “BTC Pipeline ESIA Azerbajan” (Bold added.)

Mud volcanoes, which form both onshore and offshore, are a feature of the geology of eastern
Azerbaijan, producing a potential geolhzard to pipeline construction and operation. Mud
volcanoes are the points at which pressure within the earth’s cmst (up to 6km deep) is
released. Mud and larger clasts of rocks, liquids and gases erupt from the ground surface.
…
Eruptions can be violent and unexpected, ejecting debris many hundreds of meters into the
air, and some are associated with pyroclastic flows. A further potential issue is that gases
discharged by mud volcanoes may be flammable.
Over 300 mud volcanoes are present in Azerbaijan, the majority of which are associated with
anticlinal fold structures. Mudflows 10m thick, several hundred meters wide and 5-l0 km in
length have been recorded in Azerbaijan (Jagubov ef al., 1972).

Additionally, the text states: “Approximately 40% of eruptions are believed to include associated gases that spontaneously ignite, with flame heights exceeding 100m”
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/bp_caspian/bp_caspian_en/STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/xyz/BTC_English_ESIAs_Azerbaijan_Content_Baseline_Reports_BTC_ESIA_Baseli-_Geohazards.pdf
How that for groundwater contamination?
On the other side of the Caspian Sea, Derweze in Turkmenistan has it’s “Door to Hell.” Not really a natural “event,” a drilling rig collapsed into a cavern filled with natural gas. Fearing hydrogen sulfide (poisonous.. it’s the part that makes “sour gas” sour) they lit it off. That was 1971. It’s been burning ever since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_to_hell#The_.22Door_to_Hell.22

David,
nice explanation. I guess we now have a pretty good idea of why the author went into history (or histrionics?) instead of science or engineering. One thing no one talks about with solar is the albedo impact. by fundamental reasoning, solar farms need to be located in areas where there is maximum sunlight reaching the surface and typically where there is minimal quality use of the land – cheap desert or ‘wasteland’ being preferred. From the perspective of albedo, the cheap land tends to have the highest surface albdeo (like sand). Solar panels tend to have extremely low albedo, absorbing most of the incoming power and converting a fraction of it to electrical energy and leaving the rest as heat. For small arrays of panels, this is inconsequential. For massive arrays necessary for commercial power generation, we’re talking about much larger areas and enough added absorbed heat, several times the power generated by the panels, to become a local or regional heat island type problem.

ChE says:
July 31, 2012 at 8:18 pm
For the benefit of anyone not aware of who this nut case is, this is one and the same Juan Cole who denies that Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Perfessor Cole’s an unapologetic Persophile — he’s got some good insights into the tribal mentality in the ME and SWA, but lacks a true historian’s objectivity. That said, his knowledge of *anything* unrelated to Islam appears to have solely been gleaned from reading the comments of the Kos Kids and the commenters at RC who haven’t (yet) been banned:

But volcanic rocks and the oceans wash the CO2 back out of the atmosphere if it isn’t in huge quantities, so in the old days humans could only really cause blips. Still, mass deaths of humans, as during the Black Plague or the European-induced epidemics that killed off most of the Native Americans, probably caused colder temperatures for a while in the aftermath.

He’s equally clueless when it comes to economics. I guess he was too busy worrying about fracking to notice Solyndragate::

Massive government-funded research and tax breaks could bring down costs of solar and wind quickly and make geothermal more practical.

http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/the-collapse-of-the-climate-change-contrarians-and-the-end-of-coal.html

Coldlynx says:
July 31, 2012 at 4:57 pm
I love fracking.
But i also love PV panels at right price. I cant see why not use both, and be happy over lower prices for both gas and PV panels.

The reality is solar power, like wind, is intermittent and unreliable. We can’t generate power from either on demand nor can we currently store the electricity effectively/economically when more is generated than we need.
Denmark is a great example. Denmark frequently has to sell it’s wind-generated electricity below costs and also has to frequently buy electricity from the European grid (mostly from hydroelectric plants in Norway) in order to keep the lights running.
I’ll start getting excited about cheap solar when the total costs (purchase, installation and upkeep) become affordable without government subsidies and the time to see a positive return on investment is less than the service life of the equipment.
That’s not to say that a drop in the cost of solar is bad, it just still has a long way to go.

“As of about six months ago, the nationwide projection was that there would be about a 4% shortfall in energy production vs demand, even with enhanced conservation measures. Some prefectures were expecting about 13 to 16% shortfall”
At which point Japan will probably suffer the same major grid outages that India is currently experiencing.
“The British government has given the go-ahead for two huge offshore wind farms off the coast of Norfolk (the eastern coast)”
And in yesterdays local paper was news of a second, large, solar farm nearby:
http://tinyurl.com/cbms5u5
The article (and comments) once again fail to distinguish between Kw/Mw and Kwh/Mwh, and no one on either side of the discussion says anything about how the grid copes with unreliable & variable supplies, or the lack of any practical way of storing surplus energy to cover low wind & darkness. As someone who knows the area well, they also forget the regular sea fog which can extend several miles inland (further than the existing site mentioned in that link). I can’t think of a less suitable location…

If you guys don’t want to be seen as puppets for Oil and Gas, why do you allow yourselves to get dragged in to ANTI-GREEN sentiments as opposed to sticking with ANTI-CAGW discussions?!?
I mean SERIOUSLY. If people are afraid of contamination of their environment and drinking water from oil/gas drilling, can you blame them??? Macondo, Yellowstone river, Athabasca, Mountain top removal, Valdez… how many examples of corrupt regulation and negligent treatment of our environment do you need to see before their fears are justified??
CAGW is a farce. Green energy technology is not yet viable. But if you don’t want to LOOK like what you’re accused of being, don’t dress that way.

$#@! — “co-opted,” not so-opted.” Typing and editing by laptop screen light never works out qiute rgiht…

more soylent green! says:
August 1, 2012 at 7:05 am
Coldlynx says:
July 31, 2012 at 4:57 pm
I love fracking.
But i also love PV panels at right price. I cant see why not use both, and be happy over lower prices for both gas and PV panels.
…
That’s not to say that a drop in the cost of solar is bad, it just still has a long way to go.

1. For small applications, with supplementary baseload sources (like a homeowner with a solar roof AND a grid connection), it can work. Nowhere else.
2. If PV panels were free, they would still be horribly overpriced for large scale applications. The real costs are elsewhere, and badly quantified.

when a tsunami messes up your nuke power its always a good idea to migrate to offshore wind power.
cause a tsunami will magically swerve to avoid it.

Brave new world as solar PV heads to 50c/watt
By Giles Parkinson on 20 July 2012
US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu earlier this year suggested that solar PV without subsidies will be cheaper than both coal and gas if it could get its costs down to around $1/watt by the end of the decade…

Well that is certainly easy to do. Just have Bernancke keep printing US dollars and pretty soon it will take a wheelbarrow full to but a gallon of gas.

heresey101-
You say “All the numbers and charts about solar being too costly are just obfustication, or maybe coal industry propaganda?”
I disagree with your spelling of obfuscation, and your claim that the charts are wrong.
You claim residential system installed price is $4.5 – $5.5 per W. Lets use $5/W(pk DC). AC production is 80% of DC panel rating (NREL says 77%), so price is $6.25/W(AC), or $6250/kW(AC). Assume a 20 yr loan at 5% gives a total expense of $6250*1.58 = $9900/kW(AC). This does not include O&M costs (inverter won’t last 20 yrs), panel O/P derating of 1%/yr, and utility net metering connection charge, regardless of energy balance. It also assumes every kWh is either used by the owner or is revenue-balanced over the integration period used by the utility.
The system runs at peak for about 5.5 hrs per day in sunny climates (NREL). The cost for electricity is $9900/(5.5 hr/day*365 days/yr * 20 yrs) = 24.5 cents/kWhr. Any claims of lower costs involve tax credits, REC scams, solar rebates, etc to obfuscate the real cost of the system.
Solarbuzz, as of March 2012, estimates 29 cents/kWh for a 2 kW residential system in a sunny climate, 63 cents/kWh in cloudy climates.
Reducing the cost of the panels to *zero* still makes residential solar PV twice the price of US average residential utility rates.
Utility-scale solar PV must compete with existing generation costs rather than delivered costs. Nuclear is currently the cheapest, at 2 cents/kWhr. Utility-scale solar PV must also include the cost of the reliable backup generation, which of course is never done. It must also include the reduced operating capacity of the backup generator, which suffers increased O&M costs, lower revenue stream to cover capital costs, lower BTU efficiency, and increased CO2 emissions per unit energy delivered when rapidly cycled to source-track the solar PV output variability, which of course is also never done.
Ironically, if savant-free idiot politicians insist on execrable renewable energy portfolio targets, low natural gas prices and cheap, compact gas turbines actually decrease the total cost of solar PV. Those same politicians should be tripping over themselves to lend their voices to Nancy Pelosi who claims natural gas is a clean, plentiful alternative to fossil fuels. 🙂

Those more crazy Russians for GeoLurking.

Dr Burns says:
“Brave new world as solar PV heads to 50c/watt ”
Do all the renewables costs quoted include the costs of backup systems to ensure constant supply ?
Or any of the other costs associated with building a useful PV power plant.
Expanding existing power plants is likely to be more cost effective than building new ones. The same is likely to apply to increasing the capacity of existing pipelines and power lines. For one thing NIMBYism is likely to be less of an issue.

more soylent green! says:
The reality is solar power, like wind, is intermittent and unreliable. We can’t generate power from either on demand nor can we currently store the electricity effectively/economically when more is generated than we need.
Shouldn’t a history professor realise the importance of being able to match power supply and demand? Especially in the case of wind, which as a form of power has been around for several thousand years.

@Bill Tuttle: I couldn’t disagree more. Green and CAGW are absolutely NOT the same. Treating this as fact does nothing for any argument against CAGW. We play into their hands when we act as proponents for Oil and Gas. I for one, care deeply about the environment. One of my problems with CAGW as a farce is the fact that it diverts huge amount of resources and research away from things that badly need it… habitat, migration corridors, species restoration, etc etc. I know many people like me who do not buy the bunk, but are no lovers of the energy industry. Just because you feel that green groups are co-opted by the CAGW crowd doesn’t mean we should include them in the battle… by attacking them we will certainly win none of them over from their blind faith. Art of War: Keep the argument on subject.
@Allan McRae: Athabasca is a mess, and a big one at that. The indigenous people down stream have problems with fish and sickness. Nothing I’ve heard as ridiculous as two jawed fish. Red spots, illnesses, population declines. Sure, it was never tar-free, but it’s gotten worse by most accounts. Regardless, you could remove Athabasca from m(gov’t/energy) to give me anyy point, and my point is still valid. Our government GIVES away our resources to the Energy industry, claiming very little in the way of revenue for it… and then doesn’t even do it’s job of regulation and oversight. As a result, there is NOTHING trustworthy or inherently safe about energy development. I’m not against gas development… or possibly even fracking. But currently I can’t trust anyone involved to give real honest answers. Look at all the BS they gave us when the Macondo blew out. It’s the same colluded garbage we get from gov’t/climate science.

GeoLurking,
I fail to see how hydrocarbon presence/production on Saturn’s moon Titan has anything to do with the accusation that Fracking (on Earth) is contaminating ground water.
=============
Your failure results from closing your eyes firmly and not bothering to check the link, or think about the information contained therein.
The NOAA page on serpentization is actually about the Lost City Hydrothermal vent system here on Earth: you won’t find any reference to Titan. So I did bring the point home, and the point is relevant to your deficient and defective argument about determining the source of methane.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=lost+city+hydrothermal%2C+methane%2C+carbon+isotope+ratio
result
1. “Stable isotopes of carbon are of limited value”
2. “…For example, the “LostCity” hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean did not show a clear isotope…”
3. “stable isotope ratio measurements in this system are difficult to interpret”

more solyent green says: “The reality is solar power, like wind, is intermittent and unreliable.”.
What a tired old myth this is. For your information, we already have the technology to generate solar-powered electricity 24/7 and tidal electricity for coastal nations is also always available. Similarly, it is a thermodynamic impossibility for there to be no wind everywhere at the same time; therefore if you build enough of them, wind turbines are not unreliable.
Fossil fuels are destined to be history. Renewables and nuclear are the future; so I suggest you get used to them.

You also sound very sure of yourself when you say fracking is not dangerous? Again, you almost certainly cannot say that with such apparent certainty. Have you seen Josh Fox’s documentary “Is the sky pink?”
I also wonder what you would make of my response to the appeal for a pragmatic acceptance of shale gas from Professor Peter Styles; on the Letters Page of the website of the Geological Society of London?

I am experiencing a severe sense of deja-vu, Smokey. 1000s of PhD’s think the WTC collapsed as a result of controlled demolition and, in the context of the US population, the signature of 9000 PhD’s (mostly having nothing whatsoever to do with climate science) on a petition proves absolutely nothing. In any case, I am not interested in opinion polls; but I am concerned with extremely high probability that you are mistaken.

Martin Lack says:
August 3, 2012 at 9:35 am
With the greatest of respect, David, there is mountains [sic] of evidence. You have just decided not to take any notice of it. As a geoscientist, you know nothing as a fact…
Whoa. Popcorn time.
…and neither do I.
Then why do you state everything — including your opinions — as established fact?

With regret, Bill, I don’t recognise the need for the question. Unlike you, I am trying hard to stick to the facts; and I am relying upon probability and logic to identify what humanity should do to avoid unnecessary damage to our environment. To me, this would include choosing not to burn all the Earth’s fossil fuels just because we can (because the consensus view is that this will not be a survivable option for millions of people). Fossil fuels will run out one day; and we already have workable solutions to our energy needs; therefore not maximising their use ASAP is illogical and insane (and a course of action that is only in the interests of people who are already very wealthy).
Just because I refuse to get embroiled in debates about whose science is junk and whose science is sound; does not negate the fact that the vast majority of peer-reviewed research affirms the conventional view of climate science. Invoking all sorts of contingencies and convoluted explanations to justify the assumption that the majority are wrong (irrespective of motive) is unnecessary, unwarranted and unwise.
P.S. For the record, my questions were primarily directed to my fellow geologist, David.

Smokey – The only chumps in this world are those that think 31,400 signatures validate their prejudiced opinions.
Richard – Is/was this you? If so, I am indeed flattered that you would take the time to try and find fault in my supposed trolling behahviour (actually just an appeal to reason by me). However, since you clearly do not expect a detailed response (or at least you intend to ignore it) I will not waste my time making it (unless you ask me to).
Bill – I hope you can see the beautiful irony in your saying “…I think supercilious twits who insult people…” This may well be an open forum but I was hoping to get (and got) a response from someone who might know what they are talking about – so please forgive me for ignoring you.

Martin Lack says:
August 4, 2012 at 2:26 am
Smokey – The only chumps in this world are those that think 31,400 signatures validate their prejudiced opinions.
As opposed, of course, to those who think 75 “yes” answers on a selection-biased two-question survey validate their prejudiced opinions.
Bill – I hope you can see the beautiful irony in your saying “…I think supercilious twits who insult people…” This may well be an open forum but I was hoping to get (and got) a response from someone who might know what they are talking about – so please forgive me for ignoring you.
Since you ignore anyone who asks you to justify your assertions by providing some actual proof, that puts me in some pretty good company. I hope you can see the beautiful irony of your hubris resulting in a misinterpretation of David’s request for an apology at August 3, 2012 at 12:34 pm

“Firstly, an apology for the nonsense remark… It was uncalled for.”

as an apology to you for having had the temerity to rebut your aspersion on his professional knowledge.

Please pay attention Bill. I do not cite opinion polls to validate my opinions. I base my decisions on most-plausible explanations for observable facts; and I pay attention to history (including that of an industry receiving 10 times the subsidy renewable energy gets and still manages to complain).

Martin Lack says:
August 4, 2012 at 7:46 am
Congratulations, Richard…you are not only refusing to have a rational discussion; you are actively trying to prevent others from doing so as well.
Still another unsupported assertion, Martin — you’ve already self-assigned as the individual impeding rational discussion on this thread.

Martin Lack says:
August 4, 2012 at 10:15 am
Leaving aside the pathetic attempts of others to indulge in pedantic obfuscation, circular arguments, and tactical avoidance…
Translation: “I got nuthin’, so I’ll feign regal aloofness.”
I will simply state the central points I have tried to make, which are very relevant to the topic of this thread.
That’s the crux of the matter. You keep making statements that you can’t support with facts.

Back on topic: “3. Researchers at UCLA have created a solar-power-generating window. If all those glass box skyscrapers in southern California could be put to work generating electricity, it would probably power the whole state.”
From the link:

“Another breakthrough is the transparent conductor made of a mixture of silver nanowire and titanium dioxide nanoparticles, which was able to replace the opaque metal electrode used in the past. This composite electrode also allows the solar cells to be fabricated economically by solution processing. With this combination, 4% power-conversion efficiency for solution-processed and visibly transparent polymer solar cells has been achieved.”

Four. Percent. Conversion. Efficiency.
Ha! hold my Brain; be still my beating Heart!

This truly has been an enlightening thread of comments. I am glad I found it.

Your Latin and Greek does not impress me, Davey-boy [and neither does your condescending over-familiarity 🙂 ].
Renewable energy will only ever become cheaper (as it does when the scale of production of any commodity increases). Fossil fuels will become progressively harder to find and recover (EROEI etc) and, as demand increases, they will therefore become progressively more expensive.
However, unless we want to return humanity to the Stone Age, we need to decide to kick our dirty fossil fuel habit sooner rather than later. This is because the longer we stay addicted to it, the more costly (in both financial and environmental terms) kicking it will become; and the faster we will have to do it in order to avoid the same amount of adverse consequences.
Saying “it ain’t necessarily so” does not change the probability that it is. (Search online for “Monty Python Argument Sketch”).

Considering who this article is targeted to, it is appropriate to paraphrase a fellow traveller:
“If they didn’t like being lied to, they wouldn’t be alarmists.”