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posted by janrinok on Monday September 19 2022, @08:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the turning-green-into-greenbacks dept.

New study shows a fast transition to clean energy is cheaper than slow or no transition:

Transitioning to a decarbonised energy system by around 2050 is expected to save the world at least $12 trillion, compared to continuing our current levels of fossil fuel use, according to a peer-reviewed study today by Oxford University researchers, published in the journal Joule.

The research shows a win-win-win scenario, in which rapidly transitioning to clean energy results in lower energy system costs than a fossil fuel system, while providing more energy to the global economy, and expanding energy access to more people internationally.

The study's 'Fast Transition' scenario, shows a realistic possible future for a fossil-free energy system by around 2050, providing 55% more energy services globally than today, by ramping up solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles, and clean fuels such as green hydrogen (made from renewable electricity).

[...] 'There is a pervasive misconception that switching to clean, green energy will be painful, costly and mean sacrifices for us all – but that's just wrong,' says Doyne Farmer, the Professor of Mathematics who leads the team that conducted the study at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. 'Renewable costs have been trending down for decades. They are already cheaper than fossil fuels, in many situations, and our research shows they will become cheaper than fossil fuels across almost all applications in the years to come. And, if we accelerate the transition, they will become cheaper faster. Completely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy by 2050 will save us trillions.'

[...] Professor Farmer continues, 'The world is facing a simultaneous inflation crisis, national security crisis, and climate crisis, all caused by our dependence on high cost, insecure, polluting, fossil fuels with volatile prices. This study shows ambitious policies to accelerate dramatically the transition to a clean energy future, as quickly as possible, are not only urgently needed for climate reasons, but can save the world trillions in future energy costs, giving us a cleaner, cheaper, more energy secure future.'

Journal Reference:
Rupert Way, Matthew C. Ives, Penny Mealy, J. Doyne Farmer, Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition [open], Joule, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2022.08.009


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 20 2022, @09:54PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @09:54PM (#1272640)

    IDK about the rest of the world, but in Florida and the US in general, property values increase by a factor of 3 to 20 as you move nearer the coast... the people we've got smack up against the seawalls and beaches today are the richest we've got. And that's not altogether a bad thing, they can afford to fix the damages that come with open ocean exposure and the occasional storm driven flood. (Unfortunately, they're also powerful enough to game the insurance companies such that some of their losses are covered by insurance that poor people pay into as well - not 100% or anything egregious like that, but anything more than 0 is criminal considering their relative risks.)

    Anyway... no doubt some will try seawalls, again, but there are plenty of examples where that has been tried and failed. Actually, there was one rich old bastard that lived on the north end of Casey Key who made a hobby of extending his beach into the channel between Casey and Siesta Keys, it used to be called Midnight Pass, near Sarasota Florida and was the only path from the bay to the Gulf for something like 10-15 miles in either direction, until this guy managed with his sandbag work to get the pass to fill in and build up as a beach-connection between the islands, technically the two islands have been merged (and the pass no longer passable) for over 20 years now. But, for every "land building" story like that which actually builds or holds some beach, there are 100 other stories of projects big and small which fail to hold back the sea for more than a few years per dollar per square inch of beach. Dredging projects run quickly into the millions, and frequently have to be repeated every 5-10 years. Seawalls that are battered by ocean waves are VERY expensive to maintain.

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