Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Renewable energy is so cheap and convenient compared to fossil fuel and nuclear power, a brutal regime of carbon taxes is required to force people to move to using renewables.
600% Gain in Carbon Prices Vital to Rein in Global Warming
By Stephen Stapczynski
4 March 2021, 10:00 GMT+10 Updated onThe world’s governments will need to significantly increase the cost of emitting carbon dioxide in order to keep global warming at bay.
That’s according to energy consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. To stop global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial levels, carbon prices must surge to $160 per ton of CO2 by 2030, up from a global average of $22 at the end of last year, it said in a report Thursday.
…
The price of carbon permits has recently climbed to a record in Europe amid speculative buying and efforts by policymakers to lower emissions, but Asian nations have lagged behind. Japan is consideringrevising its carbon tax, which is one of the lowest in the world. In China, online carbon trading is set to begin by the end of June.
Governments need carbon policies to push industries into adopting greener options for energy, such as hydrogen, WoodMac said in the report. That can be accomplished via carbon prices, direct incentives or tax policies, the consultancy said.
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/a-600-gain-in-carbon-prices-vital-to-keep-global-warming-at-bay
Something I don’t understand, previous energy revolutions were rapid and voluntary. For example, when cheaper, more convenient kerosene replaced whale oil after kerosene hit the market in the 1860s, the whaling industry collapsed in a little over a decade, as people flocked to the better option.
One day economists will unravel the mystery of why renewable energy is having such an uphill battle replacing fossil fuel, despite multiple claims that renewables are the cheapest option.
Of course, its just barely possible that people who claim renewables are cheap are not taking all relevant factors into consideration. For example, when you factor in the cost of all that extra infrastructure required to provide backup power in the event of an extended outage, like the recent Texas ice storm, renewables seem very expensive indeed.
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What a damned lie.
The true cost of intermittency may be finding its rightful home
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wind-power-was-thriving-in-texas-then-came-the-freeze-11614871347
Wind farms who secured a guaranteed price for their output in exchange for buying in shortfalls in production from the market may now be bankrupt.
A pertinent excerpt would be appreciated. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t allow the full article to be read unless one has a subscription, so I probably missed out on some important data.
I did see in the article where Texas windmills provide about 23 percent of Texas electricity. That’s too much if they don’t have adequate backup. Which they did not. We had that demonstrated for us in February.
“I did see in the article where Texas windmills provide about 23 percent of Texas electricity. That’s too much if they don’t have adequate backup.”
True. No one in the know thought that wind would provide peaker power in this most unusual event. Rather, they are now deflecting from telling us what they actually DID plan for (or not) to back it up. Even in this fora, there’s no stomach for that.
If you don’t want to wait, it’s natural gas peaker capacity, which could have done the job. It has mostly been the most practical choice everywhere else – unless your well formation face to residential and well formation face to electric infrastructure is on low bid life support..
Hope you are among the tiny minority (of zero, so far) who is willing to get the facts before prejudging via your WUWT PC inclinations…
Renewable energy is cheap? How the H**L does one come to that conclusion?
1) First it has to have special laws so that it can even make a profit.
2) It has to have subsidies or no one will build it
3) It has to have some form of backup energy source to replace it when it isn’t working
4) It has to have long lines of transmission lines built to get the power to a consumer
5) It has all sorts of environmental impacts no one wants to talk about (just waiting for the first large tornado to go through a solar or wind farm; wondering if Texas bats will even exist in 20 years; large birds are being massacred)
6) There are no plans for the decommissioning or recycling of its infrastructure
Save Texas…no more “renewable energy” is wanted, build nuclear.
“5) It has all sorts of environmental impacts no one wants to talk about (just waiting for the first large tornado to go through a solar or wind farm; wondering if Texas bats will even exist in 20 years; large birds are being massacred)”
I saw a newpaper article the other day which told of how an energy company in California was going to start paying for the breeding of endangered California Condors to make up for the condors their windmills were killing. That’s real nice of them, isn’t it.
I wonder if they will start a breeding program for all the other species of birds they are killing every day with their windmills?
Whale oil is sustainable, superior to, and cheaper than kerosene. All you need to do is neglect the collection system and the rendering/refining costs, and assume that there is a constant year-round supply.