A Modest Climate Proposal

A Modest Climate Proposal

BY

PLANET EVANS

FOR PREVENTING THE LESS IMPORTANT PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
FROM BECOMING A BURDEN ON THEIR LEADERS IN PARIS,
AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO POLICY

IT IS A MELANCHOLY OBJECT to those who travel this wondrous globe, when they see streets, buildings, and towns devastated by extreme weather events, crowded with families that include three, four, or six children, all in the same rags they wore before evacuation and importuning every passerby and news crew for rebuilding funds and assistance.

These people, instead of being able to lead normal lives or work for an honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in repairing the homes and neighborhoods they require to raise their helpless infants, who, as they grow up, produce vast quantities of the very greenhouse gases which landed them in this dilemma, or leave their dear native country to fight for control of more fossil fuel supplies, or fall for campaigns aimed to warm their bleeding little hearts into eliminating research for viable alternatives.

I think it is agreed by all parties that the prodigious number of climate change victims is in the present deplorable state of the global economy a very great additional grievance to our gravely concerned leaders in Paris; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making them sound and useful for the purposes of agreed policy, and to whatever indiscernible ends it is intended to serve, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the planet.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for those left homeless by devastating events; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the entirety of human breeders and consumers causing an ever-increasing challenge to the Earth's capacity to support them.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by the burning of fossil fuels for a, please excuse the term, solar year, with little other energy input; at most not above the value of average adult consumption or 20 barrels of oil annually, but it is while they are still minors that I propose to provide for them and the parents, who have chosen to burden the environs with their birth and rearing, in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon society, or wanting electricity and power for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the generation of same for many happy millions.

Fortunately, I need not delve into a lengthy elaboration of my numbers and calculations in order to defend my proposal, as others have already done the hard work and hammered out the logistics for us. We need only summon the moral fortitude necessary to conduct a lottery to determine who will or will not serve the greater good, and then put the, by now, well-known plan below into action.



Finally! An energy supply all of our leaders can get behind, and work into effective zero-emission policy without reservation or hesitation! One which simultaneously cuts and meets demands. And, surely, one that can still be provided at a handsome price to the rest of us free rangers lucky enough to have been exempted by the lottery, thereby satisfying the interests those who gathered in Paris recently always keep foremost in their thoughts.

Now, please note that if providing people with a familiar dreamland they can enjoy while powering our society contrasts with idealistic notions of fairness and humanity you hold dear, and maybe even triggers your moral outrage, I do have a fallback suggestion which provides a much simpler and—ahem—swifter resolution.

We toss the least productive society members into furnaces that generate electricity for the rest of us. Start with the deceased, then move on to prisoners, and ultimately make our way up to art history majors (thank you, Click and Clack). Now, it can be argued that the incineration of children and grown adults, alike, having required both above and below-ground energy inputs to reach their individual states of maturation, will still initially contribute to the imbalancing of the carbon cycle, but surely the benefits of reducing population in the long run will far outweigh the production of emissions in the short term.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal or financial interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my world, by enabling profits for the wealthy. I have no one by which I can propose to get a single penny by either farming their BTUs or selling them to a cogeneration facility; being unmarried, childless, and having every intention of staying just so.

(For those interested in the original: linkie)

Impressive Renewables Gains Threatened by Shortsighted Policy

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a medium-term market report for renewable energy today. Despite what you may have heard from clueless, arse-backward deniers about renewable power production losing ground/support, the forecast's executive summary detailed some pretty impressive recent gains.

In 2013, renewable power capacity expanded at its fastest pace to date. Renewable power generation continued to grow strongly, reaching almost 22% of the global mix, compared with 21% in 2012 and 18% in 2007. Globally, renewable electricity generation is now on par with that of natural gas, which remained relatively stable in 2013. Investment in new renewable power capacity topped USD 250 billion globally in 2013 and is likely to remain at high levels.

Hydropower deployment reached 41 GW in 2013, partly due to the early commissioning of new capacity in China. But the return of hydro availability to more normal levels in China and the effects of drought in Brazil caused global hydropower generation to expand by less than 2% year-on-year compared to over 4% in 2012. Non-hydropower reewable generation grew rapidly by almost 16% year-on-year, similar to the rate in 2012. New solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity (+39 GW) surged in 2013, led by China and Japan, where deployment is incentivised through attractive feed-in tariffs (FITs).

Though smaller, solar thermal electricity (STE) additions were equivalent to the record level achieved in 2012, and offshore wind was deployed at its highest level to date, with the start of several large projects long under development.

Global biofuels production rose by almost 7% in 2013 to reach over 115 billion litres (L), 3 billion L higher compared with that predicted by MTRMR 2013. In Brazil, ethanol output was boosted by a higher-than-expected sugar cane harvest that led to a 2 billion L additional ethanol production compared to th eprevious forecast. In the United States, ethanol production rose marginally in 2013, as the effect of elevated corn prices resulting from an extensive drought in the previous year was mitigated after the 2013 corn harvest. Biofuels output, adjusted for energy content, accounted for 3.5% of global oil demand for road transport in 2013, versus 3.4% in 2012 and 2.0% in 2007.

However, the IEA analysis warns that unhelpful policy choices will threaten further progress.

Onshore wind additions (+34 GW) were their lowest since 2008, largely due to a drop in new capacity in the United States stemming from policy uncertainty over the renewal of federal tax incentives at the end of 2012.

Meanwhile, the geography of biofuels policy support is shifting; while backing for increased biofuels volumes is waning in several key markets–the United States, the European Union and Brazil–it is expanding in newer non-OECD markets, such as Southeast Asia.

Among renewable power technologies, solar PV is the only source expected to exceed global 2DS targets in 2020, boosted by cost declines and an increasingly rapid scale-up in non-OECD markets. Meanwhile, notable shortfalls may occur in bioenergy for power, onshore wind and hydropower, which are all mature and relatively cost-effective technologies. Policy support for bioenergy has waned in some OECD countries, and developments face the challenge of establishing sustainable feedstock supply chains. Onshore wind can face challenges related to local acceptance, as in some European markets, and requirements for the build-out of the grid and further integration measures to reach higher levels of penetration, as in China and Europe.

It goes on to make the following recommendations.

Nevertheless, this conservative outlook is not inevitable–with certain market and policy enhancements, the most dynamic renewable technologies could grow faster through 2020 than in this report’s baseline case (see "Enhanced Case" below).

Overall, policies will remain vital to stimulating investment in capital-intensive renewables and stimulating greater development.

Broadly speaking, achieving enhanced renewable deployment would require alleviating some of the challenges enumerated above and repeated through this report. These include, but are not limited to, the rapid clarification of policy uncertainties in some markets; the implementation of stable and sustainable policy frameworks that give greater certainty about the long-term revenue streams of renewable projects; greater measures to ensure the grid and system integration of variable renewables; the implementation of fair rules and appropriate electricity rate design for allocating the costs and benefits from fast-growing distributed solar PV; improved reductions in non-economic barriers; and faster-than-expected decreases in renewable technology and generation costs.

And IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven had this to say.

"Renewables are a necessary part of energy security. However, just when they are becoming a cost-competitive option in an increasing number of cases, policy and regulatory uncertainty is rising in some key markets. This stems from concerns about the costs of deploying renewables. Governments must distinguish more clearly between the past, present and future, as costs are falling over time. Many renewables no longer need high incentive levels. Rather, given their capital-intensive nature, renewables require a market context that assures a reasonable and predictable return for investors. This calls for a serious reflection on market design needed to achieve a more sustainable world energy mix."

In other words, if policymakers remove their craniums from their posteriors, the growth over the past few years can continue and even improve for some forms of renewable power generation.