‘The transition isn’t going to happen over night. I don’t see any indication we can’t do it.’
H’mm.
After 30 years of pro-renewable policies and high-level political pressure and all, renewables still make up only about 1% of the world’s energy mix. And many of those years were when Joe Public had been persuaded that The Science Was Settled and Global Warming was a major problem that we needed to fix. Governments threw taxpayers money at it willy nilly in huge subsidies. And still achieved a pretty pathetic 1%
To even get to 50% by the end of the century the rate of adoption will need to increase 20 times from where it is today. Do you really think that is financially achievable? Do you think people will stand for the despoilment of their countryside with wind farms and solar panels in countries where population is dense, demand for energy is high and land is expensive and rare?
Maybe the vast rolling plains of the Midwest are suitable. But there are no equivalent open spaces left in Europe.
I read about the China US ‘deal’. Seemed to me it was a commitment for the US to cut its emissions and for China to look again at theirs in 15 or so years. A pretty one-sided agreement that will be quietly forgotten as soon as possible.
The basic problem remains. By comparison with fossil fuels, renewables have lots of practical disadvantages. And the only thing they have going for them ‘fewer emissions’ is no longer a politically winning argument. People just don’t care.
