I'm glad this article does not include nuclear power, which would make it unacceptable to me. Perhaps this might be one of the better crumbs Obama will throw at us?? I certainly hope so! Good for Europe and anywhere else in the world that adopts such policies!

The report is far too conservative. A combination of steadily decreasing wind power prices and storage systems such as pumped hydro (or pumping air down an empty natural gas well to store air pressure) can soon bankrupt oil-for-electricity plants and then go after coal plants. The supply of wind power off the U.S. coasts is more than the U.S. can use.

Battery swapping stations (like gas stations) for electric cars would give them a nearly infinite driving range at around $1.00/gallon equivalent.

All buildings can benefit from insulation, and all new buildings in the frost belt can benefit from passive (or active) solar construction. Solar heating techniques are changing too, for the better. May the best competitors win.

That leaves industrial processes that use oil and coal. We have tools to lower these uses too.

If you represent a gigantic wall street coalition and I didn't mention your energy source, too bad.

“Currently, the renewable energy market is worth 70 billion dollars and doubling in size every three years.”
“The report estimates that without changing the system, total electricity supply costs will rise from 1.75 trillion today to 3.8 trillion dollars in 2020.”
As a private investor for a private company, which looks better to you: 70 billion dollars that will become 140 billion in 2012, or 1.75 trillion dollars that will become 3.8 trillion in 2020?
Our private economic system is completely unmotivated to do anything where the costs in finance or in suffering will be paid by the public, and providing public subsidies to motivate investors would be as crippling to the public as doing nothing at all. The only solution is to make the study of economics rigorous by subordinating it to the laws of thermodynamics and compelling the realization that costs exceed revenues by about 99 to 1. Informed democratic decision-making of the public must take the place of the grasping motivations for the mob behavior of investors if there is to be any real solution to the swarms of problems heading straight for our human survival.

If she wins on Nov. 4, Sarah Barracuda Palin is Dick Cheney's heir apparent to continue clandestine US energy policy development and execution that grants a de facto monopoly to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.

I won't matter what John McClone thinks, he will be taking orders from her, just as Dubya has taken orders from Cheney.

The key word in the headline is: ______ "COULD".

Don't anyone hold their breath.

What was it that Franklin said? "A chicken in every pot and a panel on every roof?"

Big Oil Company Chairman Crunk;

"Solar power?! But but but that's renewable!? How am I gonna afford my cottage in the Hamptons without my crunky junkies daily consumer revenue stream?!"

snydly
You know, sometimes it's instructive to make a few observations and see where they take us. The following may seem too simple, or over the top, but consider:
The IPCC ice core data charts, and the same as seen in Gore's Book printed, so it can be studied, show us that there have been about 6 ice age cycles in the last 650ky. We are on the up-swing of a temp/CO2 spike now, with GHGs now well out of historical norms. This begs the questions-What weather phenomenon has defeated and reversed the previous spikes, yet not immediately lowered the mean planetary temp? -which is the trigger? temp or CO2? Perhaps, temp, but consider that it is also obvious that the reversals occurred before the ice caps melted appreciably, otherwise there would be no data to harvest...Is the reversal the result of geotectonic event brought on by a change in mass from melting ice? Is, then, the reversal of our spike immanent, or even, overdue? -When does the ice of an ice age build up? All at once or gradually, as the temp/CO2 decreases? How is the atmosphere supplied with the moisture and energy necessary to transfer so much water to the poles as snow and ice? -What role does methane play as it is released from tundra and the oceans? -Was there massive methane release during the previous cycles? Or did the reversals act to put the methane back to sleep, so to speak, before it could compound the greenhouse effect? There were humans present during the previous cycles, -How and where did they survive the reversals?
-What can the paleo-geologic record found in the magnetic striping of the mid-Atlantic ridge tell us about tectonic plate movement and possible, or sudden, volcanic warming of the oceans? -Is it possible that the mass of melt water transferred to the equatorial bulge would be sufficient to change the angular momentum of the earth enough to tweak the plates into movement? -Does USGS data show increased activity along plate boundaries that might be a "forcing of the forcings" related to shifting watermass or rising landmass?
The answers to these questions are not hard to compute. The answers dictate the type and intensity of response that is called for. The answers have probably been known for some time, by some people who have the connections and means to respond. The answers demand a change to the status quo, a change from "growth and consumption" to sustainability and survival. Look at the tops of the spikes and decide if we have any more time to dick around with any energy sources that add heat or GHGs to the ecosphere. Coal and oil are out. Nukes and geo-thermal are out. NG, too, even though it's cleaner. The grid has to change. Wealth has to be used in different ways. It's a different game, and we're all in the same boat.
We can have just as much fun surviving with wind and sun, as with burning and consuming---let's do it!

Sadly, not much will happen as long as the polluting industries don't 'smell' money to be made. Of course, re-tooling will initially cost money but these people can't see beyond their noses.

Massive Shift to Clean Energy Could Start Tomorrow

Not a chance.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model which makes the existing model obsolete"

-R. Buckminster Fuller

As a seasoned solar professional in California, let me tell you that solar power can be as modest or as massive as we want it to be. A successful paradigm shift to renewable energy, particularly to solar and wind, requires a political will; it's the kind of commitment that got us to the moon just eight years after JFK challenged our nation to do so.

On the other hand, we should not take a no-holes-barred approach to going solar. With virtually every roof or fallow piece of land a candidate for a photovoltaic (PV--solar power) system or solar thermal (hot water) or both, the profit motive is staggering. The solar movement must be monitored from within and without and here are two reasons why.

First Solar, a leading thin-film panel manufacturer based in Arizona, makes panels using a cadmium-telluride compound. These panels work well and are relatively inexpensive compared to standard crystalline panels. Problem is exposure to cadmium is toxic. A report on cadmium in the U.S. Geologic Survey Minerals Yearbook 2000 states: "Repeated exposure to excessive levels of dust or fumes [of cadmium] can have irreversible effects on kidneys and on lungs, producing shortness of breath and emphysema." (http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cadmium/140400.pdf) First Solar panels totally encapsulate cadmium-telluride during their productive period but what happens afterward is the concern. Strong end-use recovery of these panels after 25-30 years is the obvious solution but we're talking possibly millions of such panels down the road. Already, the world is plagued with metric tons of discarded monochrome monitors that pollute air and groundwater at landfills or dumps around the globe. Billions of empty water bottles--symbols now of a worldwide throw-away habit--are comfounding waste management everywhere.

Applied Materials, the world's largest maker of flat-panel TV screens, is marketing turnkey factories of their proprietary thin-film photovoltaic panel technology. These factories can produce amorphous silicon single- and dual-junction panels at about 60% less cost than existing panel technologies. The concern here is the process requires using nitrogen-trifluoride (NF3) as a plasma "cleaner." NF3 is 17,000 times (no typo: 17 thousand times) more toxic in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (see http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/nitrogen_trifluoride_greenhouse_gas_you_never_see_movies_about_your_flat_screen_tv). Industry estimates report only 2-3 percent of NF3 gas escapes in the manufacturing process but because it's such a potent GHG, even this amount is alarming. NASA researchers found concentrations of the gas rose from about 0.02 parts per trillion in 1978 to 0.454 parts per trillion in 2008. NF3 was not included in the Kyoto list of greenhouse gases in 1997 because 11 years ago use of the gas was minuscule. It is likely to be added soon.

We all generally regard solar as both renewable and green energy. However, embracing new solar technologies using methods that are actually worse for the environment is both ludicrous and dangerous. So let's not delude ourselves into thinking all green technologies will be good. As always, we need to follow the money.

BTW, Exxon just reported $15 billion in third-quarter net profits. Do you think Exxon ever thinks twice about how it's made as long as it's made?

http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com