The Producer Class keeps moving forward

Recently, the Pope demonstrated that even with the best intentions, the Leisure Classes have precious little to offer the climate change debate (and it is damn difficult to be more classically Leisure Class than a Pope).  One reader wrote me an email demanding that I admit the Pope Francis is correct when he says that making a commitment to address climate change is a "moral" issue.  I am not willing to admit to any such thing.

• Every living human on earth produces CO2 every minute of their lives,  It's damn difficult to make a moral issue out of something we all do by merely living.
• The really big contributor to climate change is the lavish human use of fire.  But even though I don't know all the religious traditions, I don't see fire condemned in any I know of.  In Christian teachings, fire is sometimes used to describe the presence of God from Moses's burning bush to the fire of Pentecost in Acts.  Difficult to describe a synonym for God as evil but absent fire, there is barely a climate change problem.

If fire is the main issue, then climate change is by definition a Producer Class matter.  So it is encouraging to see that the Producers have been pressing forward with solutions even though the Predators are doing everything possible to screw things up these days.  In our first story, we see the Japanese unveiling a 7 MW floating wind turbine.  Because Japan is a volcanic island group, they don't have a large offshore shallow area like we have off the east coast of USA or in the North Sea.  This means that all their really good offshore wind sites are already in very deep water.  Floating wind turbines solve this problem but they will be crazy-difficult to build.  Good thing Producers LIKE complex and difficult projects, huh?

In the second article, we read that because of the plunging costs of solar cells, countries like China and India may be able to power themselves indefinitely with a $12 trillion investment.

I mean, it's nice the Pope is spiritually on board but I am MUCH happier that the Producers are out there actually solving problems.

World’s Largest Offshore Wind Turbine Unveiled in Fukushima

Cole Mellino | June 22, 2015

Japan officially unveiled today its 7 megawatt (MW) wind turbine, the world’s largest offshore turbine to date. It is slated to be operational by September.

The Fukushima Wind Project, located about 12 miles off the coast of Fukushima, installed a 2 MW wind turbine in November 2013. The turbines are part of a pilot project led by Marubeni Co. and funded by the Japanese government with research and support from several public and private organizations, including the University of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The new turbine, which will tower 220 meters above the sea, will transmit electricity to the grid via submarine cable, according to The Japan Times. The government has allocated 50 billion yen ($405 million) for the project, which allows turbines to float in areas that are “too deep for traditional towers fixed to the seafloor,” says Bloomberg News. There are plans to add a third floating turbine with a generating capacity of 5 MW later in the year, which will bring the total output capacity of the project to 14 MW.

Offshore turbines, which have garnered a lot of support in Japan after the Fukushima disaster, “enjoy the benefit of more stable wind than onshore models, and are more efficient because they are not hampered by the constraints posed by land and transportation,” says The Japan Times.

“Countries are exploring floating offshore wind technology and Japan is in a sense at the same level with Norway and Portugal,” which have about 2 MW of offshore wind generating capacity, Yasuhiro Matsuyama, a trade ministry official in charge of clean energy projects, told Bloomberg News.

In the U.S., Deepwater Wind broke ground (or should I say broke water) this spring on the country’s first offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. When it is finished, the five turbines will have a generating capacity of 30 MW. more

Could $12 Trillion Trigger A Renewables Revolution?

By Nick Cunningham 23 June 2015

After years of anticipation, the renewable energy revolution is finally here.

Solar energy is poised to become the dominant player in electricity markets worldwide moving forward, capturing a large share of the expected $12 trillion in investment between now and 2040, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Geographically speaking, the vast majority of the $12 trillion in investment will take place in the Asia-Pacific region, driven, as usual, by India and China.

The report details the revolution that is just starting to get underway. By the middle of the next decade, utility-scale solar power will be competitive in most places around the world. The cost of solar has fallen by 75 percent since 2009, but costs are still going down. Over the next two and a half decades, not only will solar outcompete new fossil fuel plants – natural gas and coal – but solar will also start to edge out existing fossil fuel power plants.

That is significant because when the sunk costs of older natural gas and coal-fired power plants are taken into account, the cost of running the plants tend to be low. But in the years ahead solar will be even cheaper than that.

Moreover, it won’t just be utility-scale solar, which tends to offer cheaper power generation. The future of solar growth will take place in the residential rooftop segment. As energy storage becomes cheaper and more accessible – thanks to innovations like Tesla’s home battery pack – decentralized solar becomes not only viable, but the preferred option. In 2040, decentralized rooftop solar will be the cheapest form of electricity in “every major economy,” even cheaper than grid power, according to BNEF. Individuals generating their own power on their rooftops, with battery storage for use at night, will become the norm.

Most striking is the fleeting prospects for natural gas, which has been seen to be “revolutionary” in its own right. The vast reserves of shale gas in the U.S. – and indeed around the world – may not matter. BNEF predicts that outside of the U.S., there will not be a massive dash for gas. But even within the U.S., the shale revolution runs out of steam as renewables overtake gas (in terms of new capacity) on cost by the mid-2020s. The role of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” may end up being a relatively short one.
Renewables increasingly make up the vast majority of new power plants. BNEF predicts that the world will be adding over 200 gigawatts of new solar each year by 2040, compared to just 60 gigawatts of fossil fuel generation (gas, coal, and oil combined).

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This is all to say that in the very near future renewables will be the preferred choice for power generation, not the niche or marginal sector that it had been for years. After more than a century of fossil fuels dominating the electric power sector, the next two decades will usher in a new era.

Nevertheless, the transition may not be quick enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Although solar and wind take over the lion’s share of new generation, legacy fossil fuel plants stick around for quite some time. Under BNEF’s projection, fossil fuels relinquish their grip only slowly, seeing their market share drop from two-thirds in 2014 to 44 percent in 2040. In other words, utilities may start building fewer coal and gas plants, instead opting for wind and solar, but they hold onto the fossil fuel plants that are already built.

As a result, global greenhouse gas emissions in 2040 end up being 13 percent higher than today. That means the world will blow through its 2-degree Celsius target.

The future then looks bright for renewables, but unless governments around the world dramatically step up their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of climate change will still continue to get worse. more