As we saw in the war in Iraq, putting right wingers in charge of starting a war is a brain-dead proposition. In Iraq, they began with fraudulent reasons for the war, based largely on capacities and connections Saddam Hussein did not have. Their Plan A effectively brought about the collapse of the Iraqi army but was useless for years in the chaotic aftermath (Rumsfeld saw to that, while ignoring the advice of the military). The belief of Bush administration officials that the war would somehow provide benefits to the Iraqis as well as ourselves was largely unfounded. Worse of all, terrorists multiplied under Bush's policies, and the enormous money spent — often recklessly — was surely a factor in the 2008 economic meltdown.
At least we have an answer to a question I have had for several years: have right wing Republicans learned anything from the fiasco in Iraq?
Apparently not.
But there is another problem and somehow it needs to be addressed. Despite their many blunders, today's right wing Republican politicians have an exaggerated level of confidence in themselves that has little to do with reality, and that is often based on knowledge years out of date.
Iraq was a large blunder. The current crowd is capable of even bigger blunders.
The dirtiest secret about fossil fuels is that engineers, geologists and various energy specialists have known since the 1920s that we eventually would need other sources of energy. When eventually the issue of global warming was added, there was no longer any question that the time to switch to alternative energy is now, or rather the time has been "now" since the 1990s. Now that parity has arrived, there are no longer any excuses.
So, in the early 21st century, there are three big issues: global warming, the need to continue to develop and install alternative energy while reducing CO2 emissions, and the determination by many fossil fuel interests in businesses and governments around the world to resist alternative energy while maintaining high profits and expanding privilege for a small number of wealthy people.
What's so ironic is that Republicans supposedly care about the budget. But the budget for torture, almost by definition, just grows and grows. The paranoia typical of a Stalin or Saddam Hussein, and an ever-growing enemies list that results from confessions under torture are not things Americans need.
Rudy Giuliani apparently hasn't gotten the memo that manufactured anger and racism are backfiring on those who wish to use such things as political tools. Such tools are disgraceful and have no place in American law or discourse.
Rolf, I have no idea if your numbers are accurate or not. But the one thing that astonishes me is how few nuclear advocates acknowledge the credibility issues that nuclear has these days.
Nevertheless, one major advantage that solar has is scalability. Large gigawatt solar facilities can be built but many of the poorest families in Africa and Asia can also gain access to small scale solar. But another major advantage is that the cost of solar is rapidly dropping and will continue to drop for years to come.
Solar also has a sales advantage: people can visualize solar panels on their roofs — but not a nuclear reactor.
One reason why China has to be handled more carefully than a few years ago is that they're finally coming around on global warming. If Europe, the U.S. and China are reasonably working together to limit CO2 emissions and rapidly building up alternative energy infrastructure, that is probably enough to bring most countries along.
As long as one remains realistic about the issue while also limiting where possible Russian energy games, the Ukrainian issue could have a profound impact on energy policies in either direction and needs to be handled right. As for ISIL, it's important to keep them away from oil fields as much as possible. If the world economy crashes because there's neither enough alternative energy or enough fossil fuels or both to sustain energy needs, that does considerable harm to dealing with global warming. One needs a reasonably healthy, functioning economy to build up alternative energy.
Of course, Tea Party Republicans are bent on sabotaging alternative energy as much as possible, enough reason on that basis alone to reduce their numbers in Congress.
It is likely we are entering a new era of price volatility with alternative energy continuing to drop rapidly in costs for the next 3-10 years and thus literally becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, thus putting enormous pressure on fossil fuel companies. But many areas of the world are becoming unstable for a number of reasons, including bad actors like Putin.
I'm not clear why Fracking is leading to excess production at the moment in the U.S., but I suspect tax advantages are a major reason (including a 2009 rule to postpone paying taxes for oil and gas producers, a neat rule for small companies where the controlling partners pay themselves salaries and let the company go bankrupt, with foreign investors holding the bag).
Because California is no longer considered part of the Fracking picture, Fracking will reach it's maximum production sometime between now and 2020. This will produce even more volatility when the time comes. But growing alternative energy should eventually stabilize the picture…hopefully.
I'm nobody, but I was at a nonpolitical event a number of years ago when Rupert Murdoch entered the room with a fawning entourage of five to six animated men obviously discussing business. The organizers of the event greeted him courteously but were not happy that he was drawing so much attention to himself. At least he and his entourage were put at a table in a back corner where they continued their animated discussion throughout the event, while frankly most people ignored them. But it left an uncomfortable aura coming from that corner.
Murdoch came across to me as extraordinarily arrogant, but unfortunately he's not the only wealthy person I've ever met that conveys that kind of arrogance.
I've met wealthy people with grace and intelligence, but there seem to be fewer of them these days.
Since many progressives are concerned about the rights of disabled Americans, and that certainly includes those with mental disabilities regardless of background, your charges don't make a lot of sense. It was all over the progressive Internet, particularly in California.
The original story was swept under the rug but the father made sure it stayed in the news. The next step is still ongoing and the last I heard a lawsuit was moving forward.
Thanks for this article. There's much I wish I knew more about in the Middle East. I focus these days more on global warming, which obviously has international repercussions.
If anyone in the United States, Europe or elsewhere is interested in working together with ordinary people in the Middle East, the issue is water. Global warming is making the issue of water much worse. Even if there is not drought, there are sometimes floods (as there were in Pakistan in 2010). Getting healthy, usable water to ordinary people, no matter where they live, is a craft worth learning on multiple levels. In fact, for anyone, it is a craft worth living.
"The first two battles of this new era are now over." This Bill Kristol quote reminds me of a comment reportedly made by two Pentagon neocons on the day the attack against Iraq began: "We have crossed the Rubicon."
Even now, do we really understand what these guys were trying to accomplish?
But I'm struck by the incoherence of today's Republicans. Cheney still believes in his nonsense but the Koch brothers and Rand Paul have other "ideas."
Republicans used to pride themselves on being pragmatists who took scientists seriously. Nowadays, they are more likely to be proud of their verbal gymnastics. A legislator in Michigan (and also a member of ALEC) wants the pet coke that is left behind when tar sands are turned into oil to be counted as "alternative energy." And of course the stuff will be as dirty as burning coal.
One thing to keep in mind about the tar sands is that it provides oil at a high cost. It is not only equivalent to converting coal into oil (a bad sign for any economy), but it still leaves millions of tons of pet coke climbing higher and higher in piles several stories high in various places around the country.
The Koch brothers own tons of the pet coke. And they would like to make millions more by burning it in the United States, though it is now illegal. It's dirty stuff but advocates of burning pet coke want their word games taken seriously.
Obama may be on to something. More and more Americans are getting tired of the word games. We have issues that need to be dealt with and very high on that list, if not number one, is global warming. But even if global warming were not real, which we now know it is, resorting to dirtier and dirtier fossil fuels that are more and more expensive (three times more expensive than it was in 2003) is not good economic policy, particularly when real alternative energy is getting cheaper and cheaper while being far more clean.
Anyone with lots of patience can find more on Blair's misbehavior in various newspapers and magazines from 11-12 years ago. Now half-forgotten, there was a British scientist who knew how false the evidence was and exposed a fair amount of the obvious nonsense to the BBC. The scientist left the government and eventually committed suicide. The BBC producer who finally did a big story on the phony claims by Blair eventually lost his job. I wish I remembered the names of the producer and the scientist. They were both brave men. But there's still more to tell, on both sides of the Atlantic.
At some point we have to move on. But if the pro-war faction gets going too much, some more shit could easily hit the fan. There are still stories that have not been told.
In 2014, the real question is how many people really get that the times have changed and it's absolutely necessary to focus clearly on global warming, how we must deal with it, and how to deal with the many repercussions, including population disruptions due to things like droughts, floods, etc. and the growing cynicism in many capitals as politicians (and even wealthy businessmen) try to angle for the best advantage going forward. A great deal of that cynicism can be found here in the United States and can only damage our future.
But the Middle East will continue to require attention. Here's just one problem that needs more focus: what happens when the flow of oil finally stops? In fact, what happens when the flow drops to 50%?
This has happened before. In the late 1940s and early 1950s John von Neumann made various patents related to computers widely available to the industry. This was technology paid for by the government and developed largely at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
There's no question that the move by von Neumann accelerated the development of computers. In a sense, the government subsidized the development of computers, though many advances were subsequently made by many different companies. Why conservative Republicans object to such government/industry partnerships is a mystery. They happen to work.
But it is unusual for an entrepreneur to make such patents available, though it is also likely to accelerate development of an industry.
The Chinese are apparently putting a cap on CO2 emissions as of 2016. This is obviously tied to Obama's announcement. If this pans out, this is a big deal.
For anyone suggesting the U.S. should wait two years, it's important to note that China has more alternative energy than we do and is installing solar at a furious pace: 12 gigawatts last year and 14 gigawatts this year and more to come in the next two years.
This is going to be an interesting election year. Ironically, the oil boom in the U.S. will pretty much be done sometime between now and 2017. The inability to get much oil out of the fields in California from Fracking pretty much means we need other options anyway. With fossil fuel prices likely to continue rising and alternative energy prices continuing to drop rapidly for at least another ten years, we may see an economic boom large enough to help the American middle class while also addressing global warming and lowering carbon dioxide emissions.
One of the things I appreciate about solar is its scalability. You need a solar panel to charge the household cell phone? It's available. You need solar panels to bring electricity to a couple of factories in a small city? It's available.
I appreciate the foreign policy news attention given to alternative energy and global warming on Informed Comment. Both energy and global warming are becoming such crucial international issues that I wish there were other sites also covering the range of issues involved.
Even the sharing of technology innovations is big news, such as some of the interactions between Germans and Americans researchers when they have complementary technology ideas. There are leaps happening that are almost as fast as what we saw in computer technology.
If anyone has links, I would appreciate it. I'll be checking back.
The way for Democrats in Washington to reestablish America's economic leadership is to emphasize the economic failures of the far right while focusing on reinvigorating the American economy. To name a few steps:
1) Stop pretending that fossil fuels will be relevant after another five to ten years. Also stop kowtowing to billionaires that guessed wrong about global warming, guessed wrong about the value of tar sands (very poor value), and vastly underestimated the potential of alternative energy. And also cut down to size the billionaires who still peddle paranoid nonsense about blue helmets taking over the country (or a half dozen other groups they know little about but absurdly fear).
2) Subsidize research and production in alternative energy. Dozens of areas have potential, so much potential that it's important not to squeeze out very promising ideas. Give these ideas room to grow and mature even as prices of alternative energy fall well below that of fossil fuels.
3) Renew the funding and strength of broad-based research. Trim the sails of certain research areas that have not been productive for over twenty years (string theory could probably use some trimming). Strengthen experimental research by making sure universities have the necessary resources (theorists are supposedly cheap to support but in reality they need experimental results to sink their teeth in).
4) Trim the NSA by 20%. Recruit, retrain and educate the more brilliant people of the NSA, whose talents are being wasted, for work in technology and science. Also close the Internet back doors and make our Internet reasonably secure. As Cheney and Rumsfeld have shown, intelligence should rely more on realistic field work and a great deal less on paranoia and imaginary unknown unknowns.
5) Build allies once again like we did after World War II. by genuinely helping people around the world. One way to do that is to help poor people skip the oil age by going directly to the solar and wind age.
6. Start blocking monopolies, price rigging and other trade practices that make our country weaker by undermining the middle class. The middle class won World War II and put us on the moon, not the plutocratic foreign and domestic policies left over from the Gilded Age.
"...The 'less educated' typically refer to the spot price…." That's a laugh. The fossil fuel industry does everything it can to obscure the real prices, particularly of oil. The spot prices are a convenient way to follow trends. Even the deal between China and Russia is not only obscured but some of it is tied to international future prices of crude oil (despite being a contract for natural gas, though it must be said that China apparently got a sweet deal).
I'm no expert on oil prices (too many prevaricating sharks), but I generally follow the rule of thumb that large fields can sell at 35-75% of the spot price and many small operations are now selling at 70-90%. When Fracking producers like Chesapeake Energy make headlines for cute financial maneuvers, it's likely they're barely making a profit, if at all. Oil and natural gas also have many mechanisms for the main operators to make money even when the profit margin is low or nonexistent. The other thing about fossil fuels are all the gee whiz promotions on how great a field is doing, until suddenly the promotions stop, and small or foreign investors are the last to know.
In the 2013-2014 period, China is committed to installing 26 gigawatts of solar. They are already more than halfway there. The United States needs to step up, match that rate, and continue on quickly. The reality is that it will take the leadership of the U.S., China, and Western Europe to push alternative energy developments globally at a much quicker pace while facilitating at a quicker pace the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy.
Nevertheless, I would like to point out that President Obama has done more for alternative energy than any president and has addressed climate change more than any president. He has done this despite heavy opposition from fossil fuel companies and heavy obstruction from the the Republican right. As everyone knows, it's obvious that a great deal more needs to be done. Short term, this can only be done with more Democrats in the House and Senate in 2014 and 2016. Long term, it can only be done when Republicans join Democrats and commit to a vigorous bipartisan plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and their equivalents.
Time is now critical on a number of fronts. The issues are too numerous to spell out. But the bottom line can be squeezed into this statement: the costs of fossil fuels are rising and becoming economically dangerous, and the costs of alternative energy are falling and are too important to ignore. Because alternative energy systems like solar and wind have now reached parity and because solar and wind prices will continue to fall, we can expect enormous pressure to extend the fossil fuel age yet a little longer.
We are in for a bumpy ride and I for one appreciate that Obama's handling of the economy (despite one hand tied behind his back on climate change, jobs, unemployment, scientific research and infrastructure) makes it more likely to survive that ride, even if I suspect that Obama thought we had more time than we actually do. The key again is an eventual bipartisan commitment, though I have great difficulty having sympathy for many business as usual types (both Democrats and Republicans, I'm afraid) who have known about global warming for a quarter century and who pretend this is all happening too fast for them. But we have to keep that bipartisan goal in mind.
In addition, the costs of installation are also dropping.
If you read Science, you'll find discussion of new solar innovations or related search about every two or three issues.
Wind and energy storage are also experiencing many cost-effective innovations. For the Ph'Ds in these fields, it's like the early days of automobiles and airplanes. The only problem these days is that the horse and buggy types have a lot of money and political clout.
Curt, just use regular Google and the phrase "arctic methane global warming." You'll see many articles on the issue of methane emissions.
You can do the same with Google Scholar. As I understand it, frozen methane clathrate in the shallow waters of the Arctic is vulnerable to warming conditions. But methane clathrate at deep ocean depth is largely locked in by the enormous water pressure.
I sense the facts are not all in yet and no one knows precisely how to talk about all this. A lot more research is needed. But I also sense urgency. This is what James Hansen has been concerned about (in addition to methane from biological processes when the tundra melts).
N.B., you should mention, when you have a chance, that used hybrids are now quite affordable and used plug-ins are now appearing on the market at a good price for those on a tighter budget. A friend of mine just bought a used Prius and he's loving getting 50 mpg while crossing over the Sierras.
The big story is that options for consumers wanting to cut down on carbon are rapidly expanding.
Clearly, Russia paid a terrible price. But one should not forget the cynical pact Stalin had with Hitler to conquer and divide up Poland.
And one cannot forget the critical role played by FDR on multiple occasions, even before the U.S. entered the war. Cutting off the oil to Japan as the Germans were gaining territory was critical, particularly when it became obvious to the Russians a few months later that Japan was heading south. The Russians had good reason to believe the Japanese might go north and thus had to keep their Siberian troops in place. It was the release of the Siberian troops and their rapid transfer to Moscow that kept Russia in the war.
I believe the war would have been much more disastrous if the United States had not been separated from the fighting by two oceans. The small amount of damage suffered by the U.S. made it possible to resuscitate the world economy. Given the very brittle energy situation in many places around the world, the kind of physical options that Republicans seem to support could easily lead to debilitating consequences for the world economy (think Iraq and 2008 and no lessons learned). Oil, natural gas and coal will be around for another 2 to 4 decades but the age of fossil fuels is over. The Republicans are oblivious to the economic transition that is now taking place between fossil fuels and clean energy. Some of what is happening in Russia may be a belated response to that reality. I believe there is still much to learn about what is happening.
As we saw in the war in Iraq, putting right wingers in charge of starting a war is a brain-dead proposition. In Iraq, they began with fraudulent reasons for the war, based largely on capacities and connections Saddam Hussein did not have. Their Plan A effectively brought about the collapse of the Iraqi army but was useless for years in the chaotic aftermath (Rumsfeld saw to that, while ignoring the advice of the military). The belief of Bush administration officials that the war would somehow provide benefits to the Iraqis as well as ourselves was largely unfounded. Worse of all, terrorists multiplied under Bush's policies, and the enormous money spent — often recklessly — was surely a factor in the 2008 economic meltdown.
At least we have an answer to a question I have had for several years: have right wing Republicans learned anything from the fiasco in Iraq?
Apparently not.
But there is another problem and somehow it needs to be addressed. Despite their many blunders, today's right wing Republican politicians have an exaggerated level of confidence in themselves that has little to do with reality, and that is often based on knowledge years out of date.
Iraq was a large blunder. The current crowd is capable of even bigger blunders.
Terrific list of six items. And very complete.
The dirtiest secret about fossil fuels is that engineers, geologists and various energy specialists have known since the 1920s that we eventually would need other sources of energy. When eventually the issue of global warming was added, there was no longer any question that the time to switch to alternative energy is now, or rather the time has been "now" since the 1990s. Now that parity has arrived, there are no longer any excuses.
So, in the early 21st century, there are three big issues: global warming, the need to continue to develop and install alternative energy while reducing CO2 emissions, and the determination by many fossil fuel interests in businesses and governments around the world to resist alternative energy while maintaining high profits and expanding privilege for a small number of wealthy people.
What's so ironic is that Republicans supposedly care about the budget. But the budget for torture, almost by definition, just grows and grows. The paranoia typical of a Stalin or Saddam Hussein, and an ever-growing enemies list that results from confessions under torture are not things Americans need.
Rudy Giuliani apparently hasn't gotten the memo that manufactured anger and racism are backfiring on those who wish to use such things as political tools. Such tools are disgraceful and have no place in American law or discourse.
Rolf, I have no idea if your numbers are accurate or not. But the one thing that astonishes me is how few nuclear advocates acknowledge the credibility issues that nuclear has these days.
Nevertheless, one major advantage that solar has is scalability. Large gigawatt solar facilities can be built but many of the poorest families in Africa and Asia can also gain access to small scale solar. But another major advantage is that the cost of solar is rapidly dropping and will continue to drop for years to come.
Solar also has a sales advantage: people can visualize solar panels on their roofs — but not a nuclear reactor.
One reason why China has to be handled more carefully than a few years ago is that they're finally coming around on global warming. If Europe, the U.S. and China are reasonably working together to limit CO2 emissions and rapidly building up alternative energy infrastructure, that is probably enough to bring most countries along.
As long as one remains realistic about the issue while also limiting where possible Russian energy games, the Ukrainian issue could have a profound impact on energy policies in either direction and needs to be handled right. As for ISIL, it's important to keep them away from oil fields as much as possible. If the world economy crashes because there's neither enough alternative energy or enough fossil fuels or both to sustain energy needs, that does considerable harm to dealing with global warming. One needs a reasonably healthy, functioning economy to build up alternative energy.
Of course, Tea Party Republicans are bent on sabotaging alternative energy as much as possible, enough reason on that basis alone to reduce their numbers in Congress.
It is likely we are entering a new era of price volatility with alternative energy continuing to drop rapidly in costs for the next 3-10 years and thus literally becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, thus putting enormous pressure on fossil fuel companies. But many areas of the world are becoming unstable for a number of reasons, including bad actors like Putin.
I'm not clear why Fracking is leading to excess production at the moment in the U.S., but I suspect tax advantages are a major reason (including a 2009 rule to postpone paying taxes for oil and gas producers, a neat rule for small companies where the controlling partners pay themselves salaries and let the company go bankrupt, with foreign investors holding the bag).
Because California is no longer considered part of the Fracking picture, Fracking will reach it's maximum production sometime between now and 2020. This will produce even more volatility when the time comes. But growing alternative energy should eventually stabilize the picture…hopefully.
Does al-Sistani, the top Shiite cleric still have the ability to influence events? What's his current stance on handling Maliki?
I'm nobody, but I was at a nonpolitical event a number of years ago when Rupert Murdoch entered the room with a fawning entourage of five to six animated men obviously discussing business. The organizers of the event greeted him courteously but were not happy that he was drawing so much attention to himself. At least he and his entourage were put at a table in a back corner where they continued their animated discussion throughout the event, while frankly most people ignored them. But it left an uncomfortable aura coming from that corner.
Murdoch came across to me as extraordinarily arrogant, but unfortunately he's not the only wealthy person I've ever met that conveys that kind of arrogance.
I've met wealthy people with grace and intelligence, but there seem to be fewer of them these days.
Since many progressives are concerned about the rights of disabled Americans, and that certainly includes those with mental disabilities regardless of background, your charges don't make a lot of sense. It was all over the progressive Internet, particularly in California.
The original story was swept under the rug but the father made sure it stayed in the news. The next step is still ongoing and the last I heard a lawsuit was moving forward.
Thanks for this article. There's much I wish I knew more about in the Middle East. I focus these days more on global warming, which obviously has international repercussions.
If anyone in the United States, Europe or elsewhere is interested in working together with ordinary people in the Middle East, the issue is water. Global warming is making the issue of water much worse. Even if there is not drought, there are sometimes floods (as there were in Pakistan in 2010). Getting healthy, usable water to ordinary people, no matter where they live, is a craft worth learning on multiple levels. In fact, for anyone, it is a craft worth living.
"The first two battles of this new era are now over." This Bill Kristol quote reminds me of a comment reportedly made by two Pentagon neocons on the day the attack against Iraq began: "We have crossed the Rubicon."
Even now, do we really understand what these guys were trying to accomplish?
But I'm struck by the incoherence of today's Republicans. Cheney still believes in his nonsense but the Koch brothers and Rand Paul have other "ideas."
Republicans used to pride themselves on being pragmatists who took scientists seriously. Nowadays, they are more likely to be proud of their verbal gymnastics. A legislator in Michigan (and also a member of ALEC) wants the pet coke that is left behind when tar sands are turned into oil to be counted as "alternative energy." And of course the stuff will be as dirty as burning coal.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/13/3448698/michigan-lawmaker-tar-sands-waste/
One thing to keep in mind about the tar sands is that it provides oil at a high cost. It is not only equivalent to converting coal into oil (a bad sign for any economy), but it still leaves millions of tons of pet coke climbing higher and higher in piles several stories high in various places around the country.
The Koch brothers own tons of the pet coke. And they would like to make millions more by burning it in the United States, though it is now illegal. It's dirty stuff but advocates of burning pet coke want their word games taken seriously.
Obama may be on to something. More and more Americans are getting tired of the word games. We have issues that need to be dealt with and very high on that list, if not number one, is global warming. But even if global warming were not real, which we now know it is, resorting to dirtier and dirtier fossil fuels that are more and more expensive (three times more expensive than it was in 2003) is not good economic policy, particularly when real alternative energy is getting cheaper and cheaper while being far more clean.
Anyone with lots of patience can find more on Blair's misbehavior in various newspapers and magazines from 11-12 years ago. Now half-forgotten, there was a British scientist who knew how false the evidence was and exposed a fair amount of the obvious nonsense to the BBC. The scientist left the government and eventually committed suicide. The BBC producer who finally did a big story on the phony claims by Blair eventually lost his job. I wish I remembered the names of the producer and the scientist. They were both brave men. But there's still more to tell, on both sides of the Atlantic.
At some point we have to move on. But if the pro-war faction gets going too much, some more shit could easily hit the fan. There are still stories that have not been told.
In 2014, the real question is how many people really get that the times have changed and it's absolutely necessary to focus clearly on global warming, how we must deal with it, and how to deal with the many repercussions, including population disruptions due to things like droughts, floods, etc. and the growing cynicism in many capitals as politicians (and even wealthy businessmen) try to angle for the best advantage going forward. A great deal of that cynicism can be found here in the United States and can only damage our future.
But the Middle East will continue to require attention. Here's just one problem that needs more focus: what happens when the flow of oil finally stops? In fact, what happens when the flow drops to 50%?
This has happened before. In the late 1940s and early 1950s John von Neumann made various patents related to computers widely available to the industry. This was technology paid for by the government and developed largely at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
There's no question that the move by von Neumann accelerated the development of computers. In a sense, the government subsidized the development of computers, though many advances were subsequently made by many different companies. Why conservative Republicans object to such government/industry partnerships is a mystery. They happen to work.
But it is unusual for an entrepreneur to make such patents available, though it is also likely to accelerate development of an industry.
The Chinese are apparently putting a cap on CO2 emissions as of 2016. This is obviously tied to Obama's announcement. If this pans out, this is a big deal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/03/china-climatechange-idUSL3N0OK1VH20140603
For anyone suggesting the U.S. should wait two years, it's important to note that China has more alternative energy than we do and is installing solar at a furious pace: 12 gigawatts last year and 14 gigawatts this year and more to come in the next two years.
This is going to be an interesting election year. Ironically, the oil boom in the U.S. will pretty much be done sometime between now and 2017. The inability to get much oil out of the fields in California from Fracking pretty much means we need other options anyway. With fossil fuel prices likely to continue rising and alternative energy prices continuing to drop rapidly for at least another ten years, we may see an economic boom large enough to help the American middle class while also addressing global warming and lowering carbon dioxide emissions.
One of the things I appreciate about solar is its scalability. You need a solar panel to charge the household cell phone? It's available. You need solar panels to bring electricity to a couple of factories in a small city? It's available.
I appreciate the foreign policy news attention given to alternative energy and global warming on Informed Comment. Both energy and global warming are becoming such crucial international issues that I wish there were other sites also covering the range of issues involved.
Even the sharing of technology innovations is big news, such as some of the interactions between Germans and Americans researchers when they have complementary technology ideas. There are leaps happening that are almost as fast as what we saw in computer technology.
If anyone has links, I would appreciate it. I'll be checking back.
The way for Democrats in Washington to reestablish America's economic leadership is to emphasize the economic failures of the far right while focusing on reinvigorating the American economy. To name a few steps:
1) Stop pretending that fossil fuels will be relevant after another five to ten years. Also stop kowtowing to billionaires that guessed wrong about global warming, guessed wrong about the value of tar sands (very poor value), and vastly underestimated the potential of alternative energy. And also cut down to size the billionaires who still peddle paranoid nonsense about blue helmets taking over the country (or a half dozen other groups they know little about but absurdly fear).
2) Subsidize research and production in alternative energy. Dozens of areas have potential, so much potential that it's important not to squeeze out very promising ideas. Give these ideas room to grow and mature even as prices of alternative energy fall well below that of fossil fuels.
3) Renew the funding and strength of broad-based research. Trim the sails of certain research areas that have not been productive for over twenty years (string theory could probably use some trimming). Strengthen experimental research by making sure universities have the necessary resources (theorists are supposedly cheap to support but in reality they need experimental results to sink their teeth in).
4) Trim the NSA by 20%. Recruit, retrain and educate the more brilliant people of the NSA, whose talents are being wasted, for work in technology and science. Also close the Internet back doors and make our Internet reasonably secure. As Cheney and Rumsfeld have shown, intelligence should rely more on realistic field work and a great deal less on paranoia and imaginary unknown unknowns.
5) Build allies once again like we did after World War II. by genuinely helping people around the world. One way to do that is to help poor people skip the oil age by going directly to the solar and wind age.
6. Start blocking monopolies, price rigging and other trade practices that make our country weaker by undermining the middle class. The middle class won World War II and put us on the moon, not the plutocratic foreign and domestic policies left over from the Gilded Age.
"...The 'less educated' typically refer to the spot price…." That's a laugh. The fossil fuel industry does everything it can to obscure the real prices, particularly of oil. The spot prices are a convenient way to follow trends. Even the deal between China and Russia is not only obscured but some of it is tied to international future prices of crude oil (despite being a contract for natural gas, though it must be said that China apparently got a sweet deal).
I'm no expert on oil prices (too many prevaricating sharks), but I generally follow the rule of thumb that large fields can sell at 35-75% of the spot price and many small operations are now selling at 70-90%. When Fracking producers like Chesapeake Energy make headlines for cute financial maneuvers, it's likely they're barely making a profit, if at all. Oil and natural gas also have many mechanisms for the main operators to make money even when the profit margin is low or nonexistent. The other thing about fossil fuels are all the gee whiz promotions on how great a field is doing, until suddenly the promotions stop, and small or foreign investors are the last to know.
In the 2013-2014 period, China is committed to installing 26 gigawatts of solar. They are already more than halfway there. The United States needs to step up, match that rate, and continue on quickly. The reality is that it will take the leadership of the U.S., China, and Western Europe to push alternative energy developments globally at a much quicker pace while facilitating at a quicker pace the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy.
Nevertheless, I would like to point out that President Obama has done more for alternative energy than any president and has addressed climate change more than any president. He has done this despite heavy opposition from fossil fuel companies and heavy obstruction from the the Republican right. As everyone knows, it's obvious that a great deal more needs to be done. Short term, this can only be done with more Democrats in the House and Senate in 2014 and 2016. Long term, it can only be done when Republicans join Democrats and commit to a vigorous bipartisan plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and their equivalents.
Time is now critical on a number of fronts. The issues are too numerous to spell out. But the bottom line can be squeezed into this statement: the costs of fossil fuels are rising and becoming economically dangerous, and the costs of alternative energy are falling and are too important to ignore. Because alternative energy systems like solar and wind have now reached parity and because solar and wind prices will continue to fall, we can expect enormous pressure to extend the fossil fuel age yet a little longer.
We are in for a bumpy ride and I for one appreciate that Obama's handling of the economy (despite one hand tied behind his back on climate change, jobs, unemployment, scientific research and infrastructure) makes it more likely to survive that ride, even if I suspect that Obama thought we had more time than we actually do. The key again is an eventual bipartisan commitment, though I have great difficulty having sympathy for many business as usual types (both Democrats and Republicans, I'm afraid) who have known about global warming for a quarter century and who pretend this is all happening too fast for them. But we have to keep that bipartisan goal in mind.
Paul, the following chart came out in 2012 and is already out of date:
http://costofsolar.com/management/uploads/2013/06/price-of-solar-power-drop-graph.jpg
In addition, the costs of installation are also dropping.
If you read Science, you'll find discussion of new solar innovations or related search about every two or three issues.
Wind and energy storage are also experiencing many cost-effective innovations. For the Ph'Ds in these fields, it's like the early days of automobiles and airplanes. The only problem these days is that the horse and buggy types have a lot of money and political clout.
Curt, just use regular Google and the phrase "arctic methane global warming." You'll see many articles on the issue of methane emissions.
You can do the same with Google Scholar. As I understand it, frozen methane clathrate in the shallow waters of the Arctic is vulnerable to warming conditions. But methane clathrate at deep ocean depth is largely locked in by the enormous water pressure.
I sense the facts are not all in yet and no one knows precisely how to talk about all this. A lot more research is needed. But I also sense urgency. This is what James Hansen has been concerned about (in addition to methane from biological processes when the tundra melts).
N.B., you should mention, when you have a chance, that used hybrids are now quite affordable and used plug-ins are now appearing on the market at a good price for those on a tighter budget. A friend of mine just bought a used Prius and he's loving getting 50 mpg while crossing over the Sierras.
The big story is that options for consumers wanting to cut down on carbon are rapidly expanding.
Clearly, Russia paid a terrible price. But one should not forget the cynical pact Stalin had with Hitler to conquer and divide up Poland.
And one cannot forget the critical role played by FDR on multiple occasions, even before the U.S. entered the war. Cutting off the oil to Japan as the Germans were gaining territory was critical, particularly when it became obvious to the Russians a few months later that Japan was heading south. The Russians had good reason to believe the Japanese might go north and thus had to keep their Siberian troops in place. It was the release of the Siberian troops and their rapid transfer to Moscow that kept Russia in the war.
I believe the war would have been much more disastrous if the United States had not been separated from the fighting by two oceans. The small amount of damage suffered by the U.S. made it possible to resuscitate the world economy. Given the very brittle energy situation in many places around the world, the kind of physical options that Republicans seem to support could easily lead to debilitating consequences for the world economy (think Iraq and 2008 and no lessons learned). Oil, natural gas and coal will be around for another 2 to 4 decades but the age of fossil fuels is over. The Republicans are oblivious to the economic transition that is now taking place between fossil fuels and clean energy. Some of what is happening in Russia may be a belated response to that reality. I believe there is still much to learn about what is happening.