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A group of scientists have called for a "moonshot" renewable energy research program called the "Global Apollo":
They say they have generated interest from major nations in their plan for an investment of 0.02% of their GDP [about $150 billion over 10 years, and about the cost of the Apollo program in 2015 dollars] into research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of clean electricity. Their report, launched at London's Royal Society, says on current projections the world will exceed the 2C danger threshold of climate change by 2035.
The academics are led by the UK's former chief scientist Professor Sir David King. He told BBC News: "We have already discovered enough fossil fuels to wreck the climate many times over. There's only one thing that's going to stop us burning it – and that's if renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels. "Under our plan, we are aiming to make that happen globally within a decade." Another of the authors, former Cabinet Secretary Lord O'Donnell, told BBC News: "People never believed we could put a man on the Moon - but we did. People don't believe we can solve climate change - but we have no choice."
It complains that renewable energy has been starved of investment to a shocking degree, with publicly funded RD&D on renewable energy only $6bn a year – under 2% of the total of publicly funded research and development. The authors say this compares poorly with the $101bn spent worldwide on production subsidies for renewables and the $550bn "counter-productive" subsidies for fossil fuel energy.
Solar is the most favoured renewable source as the group says it has greatest potential for technology breakthroughs, and most new energy demand will be in sunny countries. The cost of solar has been plummeting and is already approaching competitive prices in places as different as Germany, California and Chile. But the authors believe next-generation plastic photovoltaics can to keep prices tumbling. They believe battery technology is improving fast – but think batteries and other forms of storage need to be massively developed to store intermittent renewable energy. The authors say much smarter software is needed to enable electricity grids to cope with the new sources of power. Some experts believe that energy technology has developed so fast that it simply needs further price support to keep volumes rising and costs falling. Others will complain that the Apollo group has done little to tackle the immense problem of replacing fossil fuels in heating.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:59PM
Pretty much refuted by this article itself, moron. This is nothing but a lobbying effort on behalf of scientists who can't get any money out of one of the biggest areas of current research, whining that "we suck, can't you taxpayers just give us a golden shower since we can't get hired into the R&D depts of one the hottest industries." Alt energy, especially the solar they whine loudest about, is a huge industry with fat R&D budgets driving fierce competition. But a certain sort of 'scientist' (I scare quote it because they generally reject most of the Scientific Method and resemble politicians more) hate working in private industry and much prefer a nice juicy government contract or better yet a lifetime job at a government research institution. A quote from _Ghostbusters_ comes to mind....
The biggest tell is they lie openly, knowing they won't be called out on it by the allied political operatives with bylines in the press who parrot their releases. The oil industry does not receive any sort of special subsidies, they do receive the same tax treatment as other industries in that they can write off expenses, depreciate assets and such. It has become a go to trope of the Prog to claim these are special 'tax breaks for big oil' and then use that lie to prop up the next one, that we taxpayers should equally subsidize the most pointless green alt energy projects to make it 'fair.' There is one hell of a difference between not collecting as much tax from Exxon-Mobile as a prog things is 'fair' (HInt, there IS no upper limit... 100% is fair to a prog, occasionally they will screw up and admit it with a hot mic) and sucking Sagan's of dollars out of every taxpayer to give away to lines of research industry find unproductive and unwilling to fund. So the argument is misleading at the most generous and borderline lie if one isn't going out of the way to give the benefit of the doubt.