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The global cost of securing a clean energy future is rising by the year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned Monday, estimating that an additional $44 trillion of investment was needed to meet 2050 carbon reduction targets. Releasing its biennial "Energy Technology Perspectives" report in Seoul, the agency said electricity would increasingly power the world's economies in the decades to come, rivalling oil as the dominant energy carrier. Surging electricity demand posed serious challenges, said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven.
"We must get it right, but we're on the wrong path at the moment," Van der Hoeven told reporters in the South Korean capital.
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$44 Trillion Needed for Clean Energy Future
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We are now enjoying total mutual interaction in an imaginary hot tub ...
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 15 2014, @08:52PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:21PM
The market won't take care if this.
Markets don't care much about potential 30-year returns, where most of the actual profit is reduced government expenses in unrelated sectors like population health, trade deficits, military...
Inversely, a long-term investment into a new plant is negatively affected by the improvements in alternative sources, meaning that richest players in the market actively battle changing their profitable status quo.
Say, is the gas price going up or down today? I need to forecast next quarter...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:34PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:48PM
Yep, I'm doing fracking in my own backyard to help sustain the current model another 50 years or so.
After that, it won't be my problem.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 16 2014, @02:59AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday May 16 2014, @09:54AM
But "averting catastrophe is eminently affordable [theguardian.com]".
That refers to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (i.e. the stuff they're publishing this year), specifically the Working Group 3 [www.ipcc.ch] publication (which has a Summary For Policymakers here [mitigation2014.org]).
If there's even a small chance that they are right about that, and not your prediction of the "United States [in] third-world-level abject poverty", I think we should start by spending the amount of money they are suggesting.
If we spend that much, and then they say, "ah ... yeah ... about that ... it turns out we actually need to spend a lot more ... which will mean third-world-level abject poverty", then we can start to question whether we are really willing to undergo that hardship for the sake of our grandchildren.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:10PM
Governments don't either. The only difference is that markets are really good at what they do. Well, that and that there actually are 30-year returns in a market.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:26PM
Tell that to Mr Deng, Mr Yoshida and Mr Kohl.
On your way to wikipedia, don't forget to check the French Nuclear power development too.
And if that's not enough to counter dumb ideological parroting, ask yourself why public schools and colleges are free or cheap.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:51PM
Those are people not governments. And while Singapore is still relatively future-oriented, the same can't be said for Japan and Germany, the countries of the other two politicians you mentioned.
They aren't. Other people pay for that. As to "dumb ideological parroting" who is claiming something is "free or cheap" merely because the consumers of the good or service aren't the ones paying for the good or service?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 15 2014, @11:29PM
You've got the wrong Deng. I was referring to a more populous country, and how its successive governments since Deng have been doing really well in their planning of metaphorically kicking our asses.
If you think Japan and Germany are no longer future-oriented, you really haven't been paying attention.
Nice try, but 0 for 3: The whole point of free/cheap schools is that you pay for them with your massively higher future income. Considering that most governments finance themselves with debt, the cost of your school is actually repaid when you start paying taxes. Even if your government doesn't print debt, it's not stealing cash from your parents to pay for your school, it's investing with a pretty massive return, which will finance their old-age healthcare and their retirement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 15 2014, @11:50PM
I wonder how you can reconcile your claim with your post here [soylentnews.org].
I guess evidence that they aren't so prescient can be ignored when it is inconvenient.
The obvious counterexamples to that assertion are Japan's current debt load (and its recent looting of the Japanese Postal Savings system) and Germany's suicidal energy policy.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 16 2014, @12:23AM
> I guess evidence that they aren't so prescient can be ignored when it is inconvenient.
You're right, they should have gotten out of third-world status by building excess renewable power using 80s tech and a worthless Renminbi, so that they'd be more ready to absorb the onslaught of Westerners ready to sell their grandma for a $5 labor cut and access to 1.3B poor people.
Since this thread started at "governments don't either [care much about potential 30-year returns]", I'm pretty sure that Mr Deng is sitting in his corner of afterlife, wondering if they would have sent him to the nuthouse, had he used the actual 2014 numbers as a prediction of the impact of his reforms.
Being so wildly successful that you get major ecological growing pains is not antithetic to caring about and planning to kick Capitalist ass on the world market while bringing almost a billion persons out of poverty.
China has a big problem. They could throw their massive trade surpluses at fixing their ecological issues and get results quickly, but they actually have to use that cash first to prop up the value of the US dollar and therefore their growth. So they have to tolerate pollution for a bit longer to protect their most sacred thing: stability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:52PM
Tried it, dint work.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 16 2014, @02:46AM
Have we? Seems to me like we're just now starting to try it and it's the market doing pretty much all of the moving and creating. Government aid? Yeah, plenty of companies took government aid for greening up energy and they appear to mostly be bankrupt or at best no closer than they were before they took the money.
Just saying, you want forward momentum look at what has and is working and look at what has failed dismally and make an intelligent decision instead of an ideological one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday May 16 2014, @03:08AM
Yes and it goes back a lot further than Solyndra. I'll give you a hint: We didn't just magically appear on this planet 2 years ago in the state it's in.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 16 2014, @03:30AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.