What’s The Pricetag Of “Decarbonizing” The Energy Sector?

Members of the Cult of Climastrology have stated time and time again that their plans for the energy sector will pay for itself, and lead to tons of “good paying jobs” and that everything will be Utopia. Might they be engaged in a bit of mule fritters?

(CNBC) The world’s historic effort to reduce carbon emissions is likely to be a costly if not quixotic endeavor, according to one expert, whose recently published research warns that decarbonizing the globe could have devastating consequences on the world’s way of life.

In a report published this week, the International Energy Agency issued a call for “concrete action” to match the ambitions of last year’s landmark climate change agreement, which was recently ratified by nearly 200 countries. The energy watchdog said the transition to a low-carbon future would require “massive changes in the energy system” to prevent the globe’s temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius.

Yet the agency also put a steep price tag on efforts to combat climate change. In order to decarbonize the power sector within the next 40 years, the world would have to invest at least $9 trillion — and an additional $6.4 trillion to make other industries more environmentally friendly.

Those vast sums are why M.J. Kelly, a University of Cambridge engineering professor, recently wrote that the push to restrict carbon “is set to fail comprehensively in meeting its avowed target, and a new debate is needed.” For that reason, Kelly is skeptical that initiatives like the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris will achieve its lofty goals.

Kelly is not a skeptic. He’s not even a luke warmer. He’s a believer in everything that the UN IPCC says.

In peer-reviewed research, Kelly argued carbon dioxide should be considered the byproduct of the “immense benefits” of a technologically advanced society. Cutting carbon, he added, could result in a dramatic reduction in the world’s quality of life that would usher in mass starvation, poverty and civil strife. Massive decarbonization is “only possible if we wish to see large parts of the population die from starvation, destitution or violence in the absence of enough low-carbon energy to sustain society.”

COP21 “will be an irrelevance within a few years,” Kelly said to CNBC via email, “as the the bills pile up, and … the promises are reneged upon.”

If you’re replacing inexpensive, abundant, reliable energy with unreliable, expensive energy, while implementing draconian Big Government controls and “solutions”, it’s going to effect people. Not the big wigs who make things like this happen. They’ll be OK. Folks like Gore, Obama, the other politicians and folks making a ton of money off pushing anthropogenic climate change. They’ll be set. The middle and lower classes will be, let’s say, screwed. Especially in Third World nations.

Not that Warmists care. And any protestation from them is countered by the fact that they push the policies that lead to the destruction of the middle and lower classes.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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19 Responses to “What’s The Pricetag Of “Decarbonizing” The Energy Sector?”

  1. Zachriel says:

    Assuming just 2% growth, the global GDP over the next forty years will be about $4700 trillion. The investment, according to your citation, is about $15 trillion, or 0.3% of GDP. As there are significant costs to inaction, significant auxiliary benefits to new energy technology, and much of the energy sector has to be replaced every few decades anyway, the investment is not extraordinary.

  2. david7134 says:

    Zachriel,
    Congrats, that is one of the most naïve, stupid statements yet. The fact is that the energy policy of the climate worshipers is going to kill us. Now, name the so called problems that are going to occur due to fossil fuel use, I keep hearing that crap but think your computer models need updating.

  3. Zachriel says:

    david7134: Congrats, that is one of the most naïve, stupid statements yet.

    You forgot to address the argument. We took the costs as provided in the original post, and applied them over the time period provided in the original post.

  4. Jeffery says:

    Comment by Zachriel

    2016-06-05 10:06:33

    Assuming just 2% growth, the global GDP over the next forty years will be about $4700 trillion. The investment, according to your citation, is about $15 trillion, or 0.3% of GDP. As there are significant costs to inaction, significant auxiliary benefits to new energy technology, and much of the energy sector has to be replaced every few decades anyway, the investment is not extraordinary.

    dave,

    Do you find fault with the projected world GDP? With the considered level of investment?

    You will be dead before the impacts of global warming mitigation are felt, so don’t worry.

    The problems with continued global warming are related to the impacts on human societies. Rising sea level, droughts, floods, shifting growing seasons, redistribution of fresh water, climate refugees etc., are already occurring. If not corrected, over the next 1000 years the ocean would rise several meters from the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, but you don’t need to worry, since you will dead.

    But you don’t need to worry as you will be dead before the worst effects are visited on future generations.

  5. Liam Thomas says:

    The debate is irrelevant. Certainly the world could pay 15 trillion dollars IF>>>IF>>>>IF>>>>IF>…….that solved the problem.

    It will not. Once again there is nothing on the horizon that will farm the fields, feed the masses or transport the people to and from.

    There is only expensive electricity which will be incapable of fueling many industries.

    So the price is affordable. The direction is not.

    This is just like Obamacare. The idea is great…….the implementation of the idea is a loser from the moment the first word in the bill was put on paper.

    There is nothing in the pipeline that will prevent the industrialized nations from collapsing.

    I get it though….People like Zach and Jeff would prefer Venezuela style food riots then rising oceans which will take 1000’s of years to rise meters not a 100 or 50 as jeffery suggests.

    Take a good look at Venezuela and thats what the AGW nazis want for this planet….and that for damn sure is what they will get.

  6. Zachriel says:

    Liam Thomas: The debate is irrelevant.

    Then you disagree with the original post.

    Liam Thomas: Once again there is nothing on the horizon that will farm the fields, feed the masses or transport the people to and from.

    Fossil fuels will be around for a while, if that is what you mean. However, there are already synthetic fuels being developed.

    Liam Thomas: People like Zach and Jeff would prefer Venezuela style food riots

    That is incorrect. Any move towards a greener future requires both economic growth and technological innovation.

  7. drowningpuppies says:

    Audi just created diesel fuel from air and water.

    The Fischer Trope process has been around for years.

    However, what was not discussed in the Audi article is the tremendous amount of electricity needed for the process of isolating CO2 from the air and converting it into syngas.

  8. Zachriel says:

    drowningpuppies: However, what was not discussed in the Audi article is the tremendous amount of electricity needed for the process of isolating CO2 from the air and converting it into syngas.

    The conversion is 70% efficient. The expected cost will be about 1.5 Euros per liter, depending on the cost of electricity.

  9. Liam Thomas says:

    So there you go…. Pull co2 out of the air to create gas….Which puts co2 back into the air.

    Genius.

    This is what I mean. You folks are in La La Land.

    There are no solutions. You cannot get something for nothing.

    Free is never free…..and this idea that fossil fuels will be around forever is a laborious toll to the socialists nations who depend on high energy prices to keep the money flowing and the masses in their homes not in the streets rioting.

    It is true that the AGW crowd would much rather see food riots then rising oceans.

    Nothing a single one of them ever says convinces me otherwise.

  10. Jeffery says:

    Laim,

    Why be a butthole? Do you understand the concept of carbon balance? If one takes the same amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere that one puts into the atmosphere the atmospheric concentration stays steady, and in fact starts to drop based on the physical half-life of atmospheric CO2. Removing the same amount one adds is equivalent to not adding any!

    That’s not to say that the engineering is available or practical, but the concept depends only on simple arithmetic.

    As we’ve said many times, if you invent a practical, high capacity carbon capture system you would be a trillionaire AND be famous for a thousand years for saving the Earth! And if you could convert the recovered carbon into an energy source you’d have solved all our energy, pollution and global warming problems in one fell swoop!!

  11. drowningpuppies says:

    The expected cost will be about 1.5 Euros per liter, depending on the cost of electricity.

    Ah, yes, the ‘expected’ cost dependent on the cost of electricity.

    Well, yeah!

  12. Zachriel says:

    Liam Thomas: You cannot get something for nothing.

    True, but the process involves using energy produced elsewhere and storing it in liquid form suitable for use in motor vehicles.

    drowningpuppies: Ah, yes, the ‘expected’ cost dependent on the cost of electricity.

    Yes, at current electrical rates, the expected cost will be about 1.5 Euros per liter. It’s expected that industrial production will have its own electrical source, such as solar.

  13. drowningpuppies says:

    It’s expected that industrial production will have its own electrical source, such as solar.

    Should be read ‘such as nuclear’, since the conversion requires enormous amounts of electricity that solar does not produce.

  14. david7134 says:

    At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that a very small increase of CO2 into the atmosphere is not associated with any measurable effect that is directly attributed to that CO2 input. Then that so called “clean energy” project are neither clean nor practical and contribute as much if not more pollutants than fossil fuels. Then the only answer acceptable to the liberals/communist is a carbon tax and that has no ability at all to reduce CO2 emissions and is only designed to promote a world government and another power base, in addition to killing the economy of the US and taking our wealth.

    But, never fear. Old Jeff, would be ok. All he has to do is write up a grant that would give him money from our taxes and he is not effected like the rest of us.

  15. Zachriel says:

    drowningpuppies: Should be read ‘such as nuclear’, since the conversion requires enormous amounts of electricity that solar does not produce.

    Hundred megawatt solar plants are quite common nowadays.

  16. Liam Thomas says:

    Why be a butthole? Do you understand the concept of carbon balance?

    I am being a butthole as you describe me because if you understand the entire process you are not only STILL USING LONG CHAIN HYDROCARBONS to make diesel fuel…..

    BUT…..

    Your using WATER……which seems to be one of the giant pet peeves around the world….now were going to make gasoline out of WATER……a commodity of which we are in short supply.

    See you guys have no plan….you keep posting ludicrous methods of replacing Fossil fuels which then upon further examination require FOSSIL FUELS AND WATER to create green diesel.

    Upon deeper reflection you will find they are producing 57 gallons a day in their plant…..they will build a bigger plant and then a 1000 plants all using LONG CHAIN HYDROCARBONS AND WATER to make GAS.

    AWESOME…..nothing is free and now you want to exacerbate a drought by using water to fuel your transportation.

  17. drowningpuppies says:

    Hundred megawatt solar plants are quite common nowadays.

    Is there some point you’re trying to make about the enormous amount of energy required by the Fischer-Tropic process?

  18. Zachriel says:

    Liam Thomas: now were going to make gasoline out of WATER……a commodity of which we are in short supply.

    Water is very plentiful on the Earth.
    http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/324327main_4_full.jpg

    Liam Thomas: they will build a bigger plant and then a 1000 plants all using LONG CHAIN HYDROCARBONS AND WATER to make GAS.

    They don’t utilize long chain hydrocarbons. They *manufacture* long chain hydrocarbons from water, CO2, and green energy.

    drowningpuppies: Is there some point you’re trying to make about the enormous amount of energy required by the Fischer-Tropic process?

    Available energy is about 2e2 watts per m^2 (averaged over diurnal and annual cycles), or about 7.2e5 joules per hour. Over a year, that means each m^2 has about 6.3e9 joule-hours of available energy.

    The U.S. burns the energy equivalent of about 6.5e15 joules for transportation. That means it will take about 1e6 m^2 of solar collection, or about 1 km^2. That’s well within the capabilities of the U.S.

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