Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Bill McKibben quoted, renewables are so cheap, people have to be coerced into embracing them.
From Climate Exhortation to Climate Execution
The Inflation Reduction Act finally offers a chance for widespread change.
By Bill McKibben
December 27, 2022There are about a hundred and forty million homes in the United States. … It took centuries to build all those homes from wood and brick and steel and concrete, but, if we’re to seriously address the climate crisis, we have only a few years to remake them.
…
The fear is not that nothing will get done; it’s that not enough will get done, because meeting the climate challenge means, essentially, changing everything. And in America that includes changing a hundred and forty million homes. E … “The market won’t do it on its own, because the market of goods and labor—the market of machines—is a fossil-fuel market,” Matusiak said. “My house has gas pipes in it. If my furnace goes out, or my water heater goes out, the contractor is not going to sell me a heat pump, even though it’s better. They’re going to sell me a replacement for what I already have.”
The scale of the task somehow looks more enormous the closer you get to the ground. Consider Boston, the home town of Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, whose push for the Green New Deal was instrumental in getting the I.R.A. passed, … In 2020, Massachusetts voted for Biden by better than two to one; Boston did by nearly five to one. … even getting new construction to go electric is a trial—as attorney general, Healey had no choice but to rule that state law prohibited town ordinances from banning gas hookups in new buildings. …
A renewable-energy engineer based in Massachusetts pointed out to me that Construction on the state’s first big offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind, is just now beginning, after a decade of bureaucratic battles, and when it’s done it will supply less than half a gigawatt of power. “Can Massachusetts really build the needed twenty-five offshore wind farms in a decade?” he asked. At least Massachusetts has something. Sam Evans-Brown, who heads Clean Energy New Hampshire, says that his state has just five per cent of the installed solar capacity that Massachusetts has. “Renewables are cheap, and everyone wants them, but there are big gaps in our ability to get it done,” he told me.
…
But, beyond inertia, vested interest also presents a challenge. According to an analysis of World Bank data conducted earlier this year, the oil industry has averaged the equivalent of $3.2 billion, adjusting for inflation, in profits a day for the past fifty years. That’s both a prize worth fighting for and a war chest ample enough to make the fight prolonged and bitter.
…
Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/from-climate-exhortation-to-climate-execution
McKibben wants us to believe renewables are so cheap, we are struggling to muster the resources to build them? That green advocates should fight for a share of the $3.2 billion / day oil companies make?
Bill McKibben wants us to believe plumbers and electricians are shielding us from cheaper options because – I don’t know, because they are too lazy to ask householders to agree to extra work? Because they don’t think householders might be willing to discuss options for saving money?
McKibben’s claim the market won’t embrace the cheaper option on its own, that people have to be coerced, is absurd. My electrician and gas people make suggestions when I call them, I’ll always go for a cheaper option if it is available, if I have the cash, and if there is no downside.
For example, I switched to LED lightbulbs years ago on the advice of an electrician, even though they are more expensive than incandescents. I didn’t like the more toxic compact fluorescent energy saving light bulbs, because one time I broke three bulbs in a row in a confined space, trying to fit a bulb to an awkward fitting. After that I figured I had had enough mercury exposure from that particular green technology. But LED lightbulbs, they just work.
To be fair I’m not planning to get rid of my gas cooker. I run my gas cooker on bottled gas, so it is definitely more expensive than an electric cooker. But my gas cooker has one big advantage over an electric cooker – it keeps working, even when the electricity fails.
In our new age of renewable energy which is so cheap nobody can muster the resources to build it, even with truckloads of government cash, the risk of power blackouts is becoming an increasingly serious problem.
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Better go crack the whips harder in the slave labor camps of western China.
And the child labor camps in Africa.
Our Dear Leaders seem to ignore the harmful consequences of their actions. I guess that’s to be expected considering who we are dealing with.
How many luxury cars and inefficient rooftop solar installs can we fit in those mansions anyway?
Weepy Bill has learned nothing, and he hopes that neither we nor congress haven’t, also. Regrettably, he’s probably correct about congress.
The other TRUE irony is that US “emissions” were falling under Trump’s policies, and with the Biden Eco-Nazis in charge, US emissions have been RISING.
NOT that “emissions” matter, but it’s pretty funny that their bone-headed policies have had the opposite effect as compared with the intended effect.
Someone started a luxury competitor to Gucci et al some time back, using advanced manufacturing processes to make the same quality for a fraction of the price. (Yes yes yes, “Gucci” and “quality” in the same sentence, ha ha. But aside from the absurd prices, they do have a reputation for quality.) The problem was that people who buy Gucci want everyone to know how much they paid. If Gucci themselves cut their prices in half, they’d lose business to their more expensive competitors.
The new company finally had to raise their prices to get more sales.
And no, I have no links, don’t remember the brand name. But it was an interesting story, and I believe I googled it at the time and it seemed legit.
The point is, sometimes high prices increase sales.
I once found a broken bulb in a shop. I brought it to a manager. Nobody before me notice the bulb. (There was no broken glass on the floor.)
How is it even possible? Or nobody cares?
Store employees don’t have time to be constantly examining all the stuff on the shelves.
Customers are just there for what they need. They’ll just move the broken one to the side in order to grab one that isn’t broken. It usually isn’t worth their time to bring the problem to the attention of someone on staff.
Renewables are cheap, and everyone wants them, but there are big gaps in our ability to get it done
You’re right Bill there’s just too many of us too dumb to comprehend changing the weather like smart liberal folks-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/study-conservatives-are-less-intelligent/ar-AA15K4X5
Just too accepting of Mother Nature and stuck in our ways although we could be poor victims of circumstances? Howsabout free computers and apps for dunces so we could appreciate modelling the future possibilities? Might work.
Well, if everybody wants RE and solar panels in particular, I guess China had better start ramping up solar panel production in its Uighur slave labor camps. Eh Bill?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636
“The global production of solar panels is using forced labour from China’s Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, an investigation has found.
Xinjiang produces about 45% of the world’s supply of the key component, polysilicon, the research by the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University says.
It says the material is obtained under a massive system of coercion, a claim denied by the Chinese authorities.”
“If my furnace goes out, or my water heater goes out, the contractor is not going to sell me a heat pump, even though it’s better.”
That’s two big falsehoods in one sentence:
I have a Heat Pump that works fine but it is an energy hog which is why I gave it up after the first year which is now 12 years ago for just the standard heater unit since I live in a hot dry summer climate, I use the Swamp Cooler which is far cheaper and easy to maintain and cools just fine thus the A/C unit isn’t used either.
Pure sophistry and delusional thinking from McKibben.
LCOE is a false metric purposely maladjusted by bureaucrats to make it appear renewables are cheaper.
About the same as arguing that electric heat is cheaper than heating oil while ignoring the cost of electricity.
Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!
He still hasn’t improved after all these years; he now thinks there is a climate crisis which was shown to be baloney over a year ago right here in this blog,
Willis Eschenbach
Where is the climate emergency?
Eco-Fascists will never let go of their mock “crisis.” It’s their excuse to remake the world into socialist hell.
I live in a lowland area of the US Northwest in a location where heat pumps make a lot of sense.
When we bought our current house fifteen years ago, the old heat pump was on its last legs. So we had a new one installed, including a matched air handler, for a total cost of $9,000.
A new one of the same capacity and with the same features, plus its matched air handler, now goes for approximately $24,000.
We will keep on fixing our current heat pump as long as parts are still available for it.
It might be helpful to address the supply, reliability, customer’s preferences, and cost to transition issues that are part of the weak interest in rapidly transitioning to renewables. Telling home owners that the cost of renewables can be paid off in 20 years if they pay for the system twice through loans and the system might need to be replaced at that time is a difficult sell. Given the slow scaling up of renewables it will be important to scale up carbon dioxide removal technologies to avoid 1.5C warming.
Hate to break it to you but if co2 does everything you think it does, 1.5c is long gone already.
Just get on with your life
What’s renewable about a windturbine?
The blades go into giant landfills and will never degrade.
The concrete cannot be reused, only downgraded into roadfill
The hundreds of liters of oil inside the windturbine is not renewable It must be burned.
The metals are maybe reusable but only with the use of giant gasfed furnaces.
Same story for solar panels.
What renewables?
McKibben was co-founder of 350 org. It’s purpose was to limit the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 350ppm.
Here we are all these years later and it looks like McKibben needs to rename his organization to 420 org, seeing as how there is about 420ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere now.
McKibben was unsuccessful in limiting CO2 to 350ppm.
The good news is nothing unusual has happened as a consequence. It’s business as usual on planet Earth.
Why do we continue to yield the podium to the loudest snake oil salesmen rather than devoting exposure to real science.
Another Eco-fascist band waggoneer operating on the level of urban myth
2 urban myths:
My plumber/builder says his contacts in the trade –
Even those that fit heat pumps – say “don’t fit a heat pump”!!!
As Powell said – we have spent the last few years replacing what works with what sounds good…
A heat pump is fine in climate zones where it rarely goes below 40° F. If temperatures normally drop below that you should have some other form of emergency heat than the electric heating element which is normally built into the indoor blower unit. Most of our neighbors here in West Virginia use wood stoves or outdoor wood furnaces, both of which work quite well. Although, if you go the outdoor wood furnace route you might need a backup electric generator to drive it when the power go out.
How is this fraud still relevant?
I suspect Mr. McKibben has been living in la-la land so long his glass navel has become a bit fogged up :<)
McKibben is clearly a dunce.
As for the “miracle” LEDs, I would like to agree now that they a becoming affordable. HOWEVER, few actually last anywhere near their claimed service lives. I have one in my entryway right now that is failing after less than a year, and it is not even used very much. I have them throughout the house in lamps, and three have failed in the last year.
when installed as specialty units in various devices and in automobiles, failures are extremely expensive, since these uses don’t have plug-and-play LEDs. Instead, one has to replace the entire unit containing the failed LED. When an incandescent tail light in a car fails, it can be replaced for under a dollar. When an LED tail lamp fails, the entire unit must be replaced at a cost of hundreds of dollars.
Our town recently began replacing traffic signal lamps with colored LED arrays. Before long, many had multiple diode failures, so that they only partially lit. LED street lamps are so intense that it hurts your eyes to look at them.
We will eventually get there, when plug-and-play standardized units cost a buck or two, but they still have their distinctive flaws.
Bill McKibben: “Renewables are cheap, and everyone wants them, but there are big gaps in our ability to get it done”
Dear Bill, please exclude me from you count of “everyone”.
Sincerely,
Gunga Din
PS You can also exclude “Mrs. Din”.
I have a heat pump/AC with a propane furnace here in Michigan. The heat pump works down to 34˚F though some have been set as low as 29˚F. Under the heat pump it “feels ” cooler than under propane heat. Probably can’t heat up the moisture from the humidifier pad as well. But, you need a back up generator or you’ll can end up like my neighbor whose geothermal in floor heating system froze while wintering in Florida and ended up having to tear down and replace their house due to mold.
Sure, heat pumps will work down-to and below freezing. It’s just that with most designs when outside air temperatures drop below approximately 40° F it takes more electricity to pump heat out of that air via compression than you get running straight electric resistance heat. Of course propane is normally even more efficient that straight electric resistance heat. You need to refer to the installed units’ specifications in order to determine best crossover point.
I set it on auto with 35% humidity and the controller picks the most efficient mode.
The elephant in the house is how high you set your temperature and humidity. I have talked to a mold remediation expert who has been called to many homes for organic growths and sweaty walls because homeowners have set their thermostats to 80˚F during the winter months.