MidAmerican Energy to buy First Solar plant -source

[Packer16]

The only problem with your analogy is that we do not know that we will die from global warming.  It is an educated guess.  I would like to see how many scientists would be willing to bet there salaries for 10 years on there outcome.  I doubt very few would with their own money but want others to pay for this with OPM.  Below is the latest on a reasonable approach to global warming:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577086361984880468.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

 

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[RichardGibbons]

The only problem with your analogy is that we do not know that we will die from global warming.  It is an educated guess.

 

Hence the 1 in 6.  If we knew, then it would either be 6 in 6 or 0 in 6.  If you want to play Russian roulette for your family, that's fine.  Don't worry about it -- the odds are in your favor that they won't die, and heck, you can get an extra 3-5% of your income if you win!

 

Adaptation is part of the rolling the die thing.  If humans weren't adaptable, things would be significantly worse.  So I agree with you 100% that, if we're not willing to address the issue directly, we should try to adapt to the situation to reduce the pain as much as possible.

 

The book Heat, by Monbiot, talks about ways to address the issue.  It surprisingly isn't that hard, except for the long-haul travel issue.

 

I would imagine that most of the scientists would wager their own money on global warming, assuming "approximately right" is sufficient to win (e.g. Newton was not right, but he was approximately right) and they get paid off if they win.  It's relatively clear-cut, almost unanimous agreement.  Maybe not their entire salaries, because that would be stupid, but an amount that's significant to them.

 

It really is a no-brainer decision to address it before it becomes a problem.  But I still don't think that humanity as a whole will do it, for the same sorts of reasons that we don't bother to solve debt problems and all these other things.

[ERICOPOLY]

Below is the latest on a reasonable approach to global warming:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577086361984880468.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

 

Packer

 

Even if we were to cut emissions by 50% below 1990-levels by 2050—an extremely unrealistic scenario—the difference in temperature would be less than 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit in 2050.

 

At that pace it becomes a 20 degree increase after 50 lifetimes strung end to end (assuming one lives 80 years). 

 

I'm betting all the political conservatives would find that very significant had somebody done that to us over the past 4,000 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Packer16]

It is an educated guess but how much of you money do you spend on guesses if the cost is very high.  I don't spend much. (I will spend alot if I think the payoff is high and achievable.)  If the insurance is cheap you buy alot of it but at this point the insurance (the proposed schemes) is very expensive and has questionable efficacy.  We should and will adopt the low cost insurance policies.

 

It depends upon what you mean by approximately right, I mean are they willing to bet that there will be more hurricances and other extraploative phenomema over the next 50 years or are there other factors beyind global warming that have bigger impact on the outcome.  I also think that extrapolative science has a behavior aspect to it that not many people want to acknowledge.  I think the latter but time will tell.

 

Packer 

 

 

[Uccmal]

You are making a big assumption that the military costs are for oil.  I would say that there is more than oil that we are spending are military $s for.  If that was the case, why can't/don't we get Europe/China/Japan and others dependent upon oil to share the cost with us? 

Packer

 

I am probably not far off on suggesting that 20% of global military expenditures go toward preserving the oil supply.  This would include Europe, UK, China, US, Canada, and others.  The US was never alone in Iraq.  The Persian Gulf is full of ships that would be wholly unnecessary if there was no oil there.  The Chinese finance military in far flung places to ensure supply.  Then there is containing Iran, and stabilizing Saudi with continuous Nato presence.  The first gulf war was fought over oil and nothing else. 

 

I'll wager that the total dollars spent by world militaries on oil security, outweigh any profits ever made by energy companies.  It is a ridiculous bet since we cant prove it either way.  If I had the time I'd write a bestseller on the topic.

 

My main thesis is that in aggregate solar is cheaper, than oil, now, when you factor in all externalities.  So far solar's security, and pollution costs are negligible. 

[RichardGibbons]

It is an educated guess but how much of you money do you spend on guesses if the cost is very high.

 

Not much, though it does depend on the degree of badness of the outcomes.  Luckily, the cost of solving global warming is fairly low, like 3-5% of GDP, so call it roughly the cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars (to bring it back it to Uccmal's point).  So, I'm assuming here you're talking about other expensive, low probability guesses.

 

We should and will adopt the low cost insurance policies.

 

Awesome!  We're agreed.  I never would have pegged you for someone willing to spend money on environmentalism!

 

Yeah, I'm being facetious.  I know that you haven't actually bothered looking at the costs, and therefore believe that saying "it costs too much" is a persuasive argument.  I know that you don't understand that the costs are relatively low compared to potential risk of, say, something that disrupts food supplies causing a large portion of the earth's population to die.

 

That said, I can understand that you probably don't want to understand the issue.  It takes some time to read about it and think it through, and this is definitely one of those "don't read stuff that disagrees with our beliefs, or would be inconvenient" things.

 

It is kind of ironic, though, that an argument that you believe is evidence that we shouldn't address global warming is actually an argument that we should.

[Guest misterstockwell]

  Even more interesting is that solar is in its infancy so costs will still come way down and efficiencies will rise.

 

My son and I installed a 10kW solar system this summer at my house. The costs since I purchased in May have come down well over 50% for panels. There is a glut thanks to the Chinese.  They can be had for far less than $1/watt. Thin film is even cheaper. I figure today I could have panels, inverters, and mounting structure for $2-$2.50/watt. Without subsidy, and without any increase in electricity costs, that would be a payback time of 10 years or less. In my state, I get a 30% rebate, plus the feds give a 30% tax credit, plus I can sell my solar RECs for a couple thousand dollars/year. I could get a payback in 2 or 3 years.

 

By the way, 550mW refers to the rated output of all the panels added up. You won't get that output all the time of course. Actually, it is kind of rare to see rated output on your panels. But, that is the theoretical capacity it could produce. Quality panels can produce 5-10% above rating.

[Green King]

  Even more interesting is that solar is in its infancy so costs will still come way down and efficiencies will rise.

 

My son and I installed a 10kW solar system this summer at my house. The costs since I purchased in May have come down well over 50% for panels. There is a glut thanks to the Chinese.  They can be had for far less than $1/watt. Thin film is even cheaper. I figure today I could have panels, inverters, and mounting structure for $2-$2.50/watt. Without subsidy, and without any increase in electricity costs, that would be a payback time of 10 years or less. In my state, I get a 30% rebate, plus the feds give a 30% tax credit, plus I can sell my solar RECs for a couple thousand dollars/year. I could get a payback in 2 or 3 years.

 

By the way, 550mW refers to the rated output of all the panels added up. You won't get that output all the time of course. Actually, it is kind of rare to see rated output on your panels. But, that is the theoretical capacity it could produce. Quality panels can produce 5-10% above rating.

 

What state do you live in?

how long do they last ?

 

Thanks

GK

[Guest misterstockwell]

IL

 

25 years+

[ERICOPOLY]

Anyways it looks like we have a new source of greenhouse gas emissions to contend with as the permafrost thaws:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/science/earth/warming-arctic-permafrost-fuels-climate-change-worries.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=permafrost&st=cse

 

 

 

[Guest longinvestor]

Anyways it looks like we have a new source of greenhouse gas emissions to contend with as the permafrost thaws:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/science/earth/warming-arctic-permafrost-fuels-climate-change-worries.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=permafrost&st=cse

 

http://www.voanews.com/content/russia_hopes_climate_change_maximizes_arctic_shipping/1554675.html

 

Upside of the arctic ice melting. China and Russia stand to gain on more navigation (oil tankers) thru the arctic.