From Stanford University , along with actor/activist Mark Ruffalo, and “Gasland” movie fabricator Josh Fox. I’m amazed the university would allow themselves to get used by these clowns. The website they are pushing actually doesn’t offer any solutions, but asks you to “Join the Movement”
Stanford scientist to unveil 50-state plan to transform US to renewable energy
Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson and his colleagues recently developed detailed plans to transform the energy infrastructure of New York, California and Washington states from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable resources by 2050. On Feb. 15, Jacobson presented a new roadmap to renewable energy for all 50 states at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago.
The online interactive roadmap is tailored to maximize the resource potential of each state. Hovering a cursor over California, for example, reveals that the Golden State can meet virtually all of its power demands (transportation, electricity, heating, etc.) in 2050 by switching to a clean technology portfolio that is 55 percent solar, 35 percent wind (on- and offshore), 5 percent geothermal and 4 percent hydroelectric.
“The new roadmap is designed to provide each state a first step toward a renewable future,” said Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. “It provides all of the basic information, such as how many wind turbines and solar panels would be needed to power each state, how much land area would be required, what would be the cost and cost savings, how many jobs would be created, how much pollution-related mortality and global-warming emissions would be avoided.”
The 50-state roadmap will be launched this week on the website of The Solutions Project, a national outreach effort led by Jacobson, actor Mark Ruffalo (co-star of The Avengers), film director Josh Fox and others to raise public awareness about switching to clean energy produced entirely by wind, water and sunlight. Also on Feb. 15, Solutions Project member Leilani Munter, a professional racecar driver, will publicize the 50-state plan at a Daytona National Speedway racing event in Daytona, Fla., in which she will be participating.
“Global warming, air pollution and energy insecurity are three of the most significant problems facing the world today, said Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy. “Unfortunately, scientific results are often glossed over. The Solutions Project was born with the vision of combining science with business, policy, and public outreach through social media and cultural leaders – often artists and entertainers who can get the information out – to study and simultaneously address these global challenges.”
Jacobson delivered his AAAS talk on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 1:30 p.m. CT, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Columbus Hall CD, as part of a symposium entitled, “Is it possible to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas emissions from energy by 2050?”
Relevant URLs:
Jacobson Lab
https://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/
The Solutions Project
http://thesolutionsproject.org/
Old England says:
February 17, 2014 at 1:31 am
Without large scale energy storage, which green energy enthusiasts constantly ignore, they are either stupid or their true intent is to disrupt economies and living standards through intermittent energy supply. They claim not to be stupid so the latter must be their true goal.
==============================
I’d say you’ve pretty much cracked the code…
Leilani Munter.
That is a very unfortunate name.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=munter
@ur momisugly H.R. says:
The other one percent comes from rubbing balloons on their heads.
We used to think James Hansen was the gold standard for climate lunatic, but even he is demanding a nuclear future these days – Hansen thinks a 100% renewable future is not plausible.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/
Presumably California will still allow fossil fuel guzzling planes into their utopia; otherwise how will all the actors and crackpot environmental engineering professors be able to fly around the world to conferences to tell other people what a success their plan has been?
Lawrie Ayres says:
February 17, 2014 at 1:54 am
knr is on the right track. With such a simple plan, so easy to implement and all we need are a few singers and actors to tell the good folk of California. What better way to advertise the benefits than to have the university cut it’s connection to the grid and go 100% green. Tomorrow if possible.
With smart meters this is now possible without much effort. I would extend the requirement that all the personal residences and vehicles are also only powered by ‘100% green renewables’. And of course they would not be allowed any byproducts of the ‘fossil fuel industry’ such as plastics, nylon and polyesters and those things made from them like cell phones. Lead from the front. I am certain the power companies in California would be happy to set restrictions on the power supplies of all those supporting ‘green power’. It could become a political rallying point for all those ‘green’ democrat politicians – go on show the populace it is possible.
Quite an interesting trend seems to be developing through out the western university system.
Increasingly reference is being made to the home university of the more imbecilic promoters of various versions of the chimera of science that passes as climate science as it is practiced today.
The various universities and their academic self appointed elites having been immune and protected for generations to critiscm by the respect from the public that has been accorded to them over the generations as seats of learning.
They consequently and arrogantly now believe that they are safe within their ivory towers and are above the maddening host of low type peons far below.
They are probably only now becoming dimly aware that their reputations are being systematically trashed by allowing the promoters of the the most imbecilic, far out climate catastrophe whack jobs to use the universities as a base and a haven and the universities reputation as shield to hide behind when they are taken to the cleaners by the more rational members of both science and the public for their stupidly irrational beliefs and the vicarious promotions of disasters to happen for which they have not nor have ever and arguably never will have any proof to back those climate catastrophic assertions.
There is only one way for the universities to go in the evolving public opinion if they continue allowing themselves to be used by these so called climate catastrophe, hate promoting climate scientists and that is down, down.
Down it will be and already is in public opinion for the universities and will continue to be until they finally come to their senses and divorce and throw out all those whose speciality is academic irrationalism and the promotion of sheer hate against those skeptics who dare disagree with them, something which is so often expressed from under the elitist guise of their superior status as scientists and academics.
The universities have yet to realize that the world they thought they knew and could deal with from the great heights of their status as untouchable seats of learning has changed and will continue changing and it won’t be changing in favour of an arrogant, self important, contemptuous of those of lower status, elitist academia in it’s closeted ivory towers.
A very good quote for university vice chancellors to remember is;
“He who has the gold makes the rules”
Universities don’t own the gold!
Governments and the public do .
In Ohio, the projected energy cost is six cents per kWh. But the cheapest power, according to the EIA in Willis post is seven cents per kWh for Natural Gas (dispatchable fossil fuel) and nine cents per kWh for wind and hydro (non-dispatchable non-fossil fuel).
Plan pays for itself in as little as 9 years from air pollution and climate cost savings alone
A large part of the project’s benefit comes from “avoided mortality and illness costs” of $21.6 billion PER YEAR and 2,370 air pollution deaths avoided PER YEAR. I have wondered about the science behind the number of US deaths and illnesses caused by fossil fuel — it seems to rely on a small number of papers done many years ago relying on epidemiology and statistics ripe for auditing.
Health and climate externality costs of fossil fuels are another 5.7 cents per kWh.
I think that the authors should test their plan by selling bonds backed only by the assets they will build and the revenues, the profits they will generate and the reduction in morbidity and mortality that will result. It would be a tough sell.
Stanford is Ground Zero for the redesign of American K-12 education to make believing in climate change a driver of future behavior, whatever the actual facts. Look up Linda Darling-Hammond or psychologist Albert Bandura (who writes with Ehrlich) who has created the theory of human agency to inspire alterations in behavior.
As I noted last week, Stanford is one of the named partners in redesigning the very nature of curricula http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/drawing-back-the-standards-curtain-to-discover-the-global-coordination-to-redesign-the-very-nature-of-curriculum/ to try to alter consciousness. That’s Stanford Prof Roy Pea in charge of that as well as the cyberlearning push. Where the gaming and virtual reality visuals will all have students convinced in a version of reality that’s actually not true.
Another recent article that clarifies just how much shaping consciousness is seen as the solution to climate skepticism, read this UK article from Friday. http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/behavioural-insights/2014/feb/14/seven-dimensions-action-climate-change
Also notice Rowson’s view of science and the law. Science is the dispute ender. Closes off further discussion and the law is a means to mandate conformity with the so-called science. Rowson even goes so far as to suggest creating a crime of ecocide.
From the body of the article …
Article history:
Received 3 September 2010
Accepted 22 November 2010
Available online 30 December 2010
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf
The road to Utopia is paved with green.
The road to Utopia doesn’t have any trucks because nobody knows how to transport large amounts of goods overland without fossil fuels. It could be done of course, just at a tremendous price. The road to Utopia is also lined with endless fields of wind turbines as wind farms consistently produce roughly 1/6 of their rated capacity. That factor, along with the energy density of wind farms, means huge swaths of land must be used. Children of the future may only know birds in zoos or cages as wind farms kill of millions of birds a year and widespread installation will drive many species to extinction.
The road to Utopia will be built on fossil fuels, of course, as there is no green heavy construction equipment. Again, practical problems such as energy storage and energy density keep rearing their ugly head; when reality meets fantasy head on, reality always wins out.
Didn’t Stanford used to be a good university?
Sounds like the Australian Beyond Zero Emissions plan.
For those who may not have seen it:
Jacobson will be publishing a paper shortly maintaining that vast offshore wind farms of the kind he blithely proposes for the entire East Coast will make hurricanes significantly less dangerous.
And Mark Ruffalo will believe him.
As for me, I’ve come to see Jacobson as dangerous.
“… how many jobs would be created, …”
That is code for inefficiency and resulting poverty.
Here’s my road map: invent renewables that work well, reliably, and affordably. That’s it. The rest will take care of itself.
It’s amazing how technologically (and economically) out of touch these people really are. They also are pushing the ignorant fraud that only renewable energy will last forever. Wrong, mutton-headed Stanfordians. Uranium to fuel our conventional reactors will never be exhusted (the oceans are full of it) and fast reactors can burn “nuclear wastes” (the energy contained in just our current nuclear wastes can produce enough extractable energy to provide all the electricity this country needs for the next 1000 years). And the sun will stop shining and the winds stop blowing long before we run out of uranium fuel. Those “renewable” (unreliable) energy source extractors will not last near as long as a 60 year plus Gen 3 nuclear reactor, such as those currently being built. Solar panels will need replacement at least 3 times (probably more) before the end of those reactors.
If those slow-witted folks at Standford weren’t so chauvinistic, they could learn a lot by looking at South Carolina, the only state that will likely exceed their 80% reduction goal, and it won’t take until 2050 to do so. The two Westinghouse Gen3+ reactors now being added to the 7 reactor fleet (which currently produces over 50% of South Carolina’s electricity) and which do not slice and dice our bird or bat populations, nor require hundreds of thousands of acres, nor despoil the scenery, nor bankrupt the state, nor require Federal subsidies, will go online within 30 months. At that point South Carolina will achieve over 80% emission-free , reliable, affordable, non-obtrusive, technologically advanced ,bird-safe power, roughly 35 years before this goofball plan from the loonies at Stanford. Two more reactors are likely in the near future, and that will increase the emission-free power in the state to over 95%. THAT’s how one intelligently reduces emissions. Are you folks at backwater Stanford University listening?
It might be of interest in this regard that the oft-cited Mr. Jacobson has, in 2010, “proven” the life-shortening properties of the Urban CO2 Dome; which, by its local enhancement of the GHE effect, leads to a rise in temperatures (at least in his models), leading to a tiny, unquantified increase in mortality, but sufficient for the Stanford Press Release writers to make it sound important.
And no, this is not a joke.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/but-the-crops-have-less-nutrients-because-of-co2-the-devastating-effects-of-climate-change-and-co2-on-our-crops/#comment-125994
The Standford geniuses might want to study up on fundamental power system requirements. Four percent “spinning reserve” won’t come close to cutting it. I recommend they either crack a book on the concept of “power system dispatch” or keep their meddlesome hands off the life blood of our economic body.
The US is a car society. Cars run on gas. Are they seriously suggesting that everyone will buy a new electric car with no means to pay for it as their petrol car will be worthless. And where will all the extra energy to power the electric cars come from?
I wonder if his amazing system includes the cost of backup power supplies. Also, his solution to have each state engage in energy autarky is typical logic for progressive planner types. In the real world the grid includes many surrounding states so it is foolish to plan state by state. There needs to be enough reserve so that if parts of several states lose power the system can adjust.
“…idiots…” “…clowns…”
Indeed, but they’re not at Stanford.
They want some of Obummer’s $1billion drought grants.
Claude Harvey says:
February 17, 2014 at 4:51 am
The Standford geniuses might want to study up on fundamental power system requirements. Four percent “spinning reserve” won’t come close to cutting it
Exactly. The UK is nearly at 5% and they are beginning to panic. 4% spells disastre.
Now, if we could just unplug everybody’s brain….