It's not just that clouds don't have any scientific impact on climate change because of the heat trapping aspect canceling the albedo, it's also that the idea that less ships even impacts cloud coverage at all.
This was from 2022. There is likely a short term transitional cost but the med- to long-term benefit of dealing with climate change is clear on every front. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pag...ld-cost-the-us-economy-trillions-by-2070.html Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5 Trillion by 2070 The U.S. economy could gain $3 trillion over the next 50 years if it accelerates towards a path of low-emissions growth A new report released today from the Deloitte Economics Institute shows that the United States economy could gain $3 trillion if it rapidly decarbonizes over the next 50 years. This once-in-a-generation transformation could add nearly 1 million more jobs to the US economy by 2070, according to the report, “The Turning Point: A new economic climate in the United States.” “The Deloitte Economic Institute Turning Point report makes the case for another industrial revolution in the U.S.—one built on low-emissions growth—to avoid significant losses from the climate crisis and to create a more dynamic, prosperous economy for the U.S.,” said Alicia Rose, Deputy CEO for Deloitte US. “The analysis shows that the battle to slow climate change is not only an aspirational goal, but an economic imperative for the U.S.” If global warming reaches around 3°C toward the century’s end, Deloitte’s analysis indicates that economic damages would grow and compound, affecting every industry and region in the country. This would make it harder for people to live and work due to heat stress, rising sea levels, damaged infrastructure and reduced agricultural productivity. Deloitte’s analysis shows that insufficient action on climate change could cost the U.S. economy $14.5 trillion in the next 50 years. A loss of this scale is equivalent to nearly 4% of GDP or $1.5 trillion in 2070 alone. And over the next 50 years, nearly 900,000 jobs could disappear each year due to climate damage. “If the U.S. chooses to adopt an ambitious, holistic path towards decarbonization it could see net economic gains by 2048,” said Scott Corwin, Managing Director in Deloitte US’s ESG Strategic Growth Offering. “Every region of the country would benefit economically.”
I'm not sure if you think it's huge or makes no sense or both. But if true and if the government can stay on course with that plan, it's a very good idea. Every time you see a report about keeping our future climate under temperature X, everyone assumes (including a lot of reporters) that it happens just by cutting carbon emissions, but that's not right. We've already got so much carbon in the atmosphere, and it stays in the atmosphere for such a long time, that most of the models include a removal factor. Someone's going to have to get some tech to alter the atmosphere by making it slightly more reflective or taking some carbon out or whatever, unless we want a really really hot (for humans and coral and some other things) planet.
I might be banking on commercial grade fusion energy since I hear it mentioned more frequently but having cheap energy will solve a lot of problems including making carbon sequestration affordable to scale. Hopefully within a decade? Fingers crossed
I think we might be past the tipping point but I’m still leery of geo engineering solutions. Emitting a bunch of CO2 and methane is a big geo engineering experiment and given how complex the system we don’t know what other effects might happen from other geo engineering experiments to lower the temps. That said though I can certainly see where things get bad enough we might need to try it.
We're going to need some kind of carbon sequestration / removal plan to bridge us to cleaner energy. I think we're passed the tipping point and may be entering into positive feedback cycles which is bad bad news. At current CO2 levels historically, the earth has another 2 degrees to warm, and CO2 levels are still increasing.
Yup without carbon capture a sustainable way to remove carbon from the environment I don't think you'll ever solve climate change. The bigger plus is that corporate America is fully behind this new tech especially big oil. We really have an avenue to make some transformational change here. The key is to prove the technology works which is what the Biden folks are doing. It's difficult to get corporations to invest in climate change tools when the resource or tech hasn't been proven. This new pilot program is the first in the world. It's a big deal
This is something that has been brought up a lot here in the Midwest that farmers both shouldn't be opposed to addressing Climate Change but also can be a major factor in addressing it. The University of Minnesota has been doing a lot of research and addition to better land management practices farmers can do things like plant prairie grasses or even just sprinkle crushed rocks on fields that will help absorb CO2.
Proterra becomes the latest EV innovator to file for bankruptcy protection https://electrek.co/2023/08/08/prot...-innovator-to-file-for-bankruptcy-protection/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wind-i...nt-5490403a?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Wind Industry in Crisis as Problems Mount More than $30 billion in spending is delayed as setbacks pile up for renewable-energy sector By Mari Novik and Jennifer Hiller Updated Aug. 7, 2023 at 3:44 pm ET The wind business, viewed by governments as key to meeting climate targets and boosting electricity supplies, is facing a dangerous market squall. After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions. The setbacks are piling up for both onshore and offshore projects, but the latter’s problems are more acute. In recent weeks, at least 10 offshore projects totaling around $33 billion in planned spending have been delayed or otherwise hit the doldrums across the U.S. and Europe. “At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis,” said Anders Opedal, chief executive of Equinor , in an interview. The Norwegian energy major and BP are developing three wind farms off the coast of New York to power around two million homes but told the state in June that it will need to renegotiate power prices or else the projects won’t get financing. The holdup of projects that could generate 11.7 gigawatts—enough to power roughly all Texas households and then some—likely pushes 2030 offshore wind targets out of reach for the Biden administration and European governments. The technology is considered vital in the energy transition toward cleaner electricity supplies and away from fossil fuels. The U.S. has the largest onshore wind market outside of China but just seven turbines producing electricity offshore. President Biden hopes to jump-start the offshore industry and targets 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power this decade. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Biden said last month about his administration’s plans to pursue more wind projects, including the first auction in the Gulf of Mexico later this month. Europe’s strong winds and shallow waters have made offshore wind one of its fastest-growing renewable technologies. But a 40% cost increase recently halted a giant project in the U.K., a global leader in offshore wind, while developers delayed two investment decisions in the Baltic Sea. Another three projects in the North Sea totaling about $19 billion in planned spending are potentially delayed or revising terms too, said Peter Lloyd-Williams, a senior analyst at Westwood Global Energy Group. “If the soundest projects in the most mature markets start to sink, that is a major red flag,” he said. The list of woes is long: inflation, supply-chain backlogs, rising interest rates, long permit and grid connection timelines. The increasing pace of the energy transition has created a loop of escalating costs. Avangrid , a U.S. subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola , this month agreed to pay $48 million to back out of an offshore wind-power deal in Massachusetts that it bid in September 2021, when outlooks were rosier. “What happened of course is that the world changed dramatically,” said Ken Kimmell, vice president of offshore wind development with Avangrid. The war in Ukraine sent the price of steel and other supplies higher at the same time that European countries accelerated plans for offshore wind. A series of interest-rate increases has made borrowing more expensive, Kimmell said. When Massachusetts launches another round of bidding for offshore wind energy in January, Kimmell expects contracts there—and in other states—to include clauses that account for possible cost increases or dips. He called the industry’s troubles a “speed bump, not a brick wall.” Another Massachusetts project backed by Shell and EDP is negotiating with utilities after saying it wanted to cancel and rebid its agreements to provide power, while Rhode Island’s largest utility bowed out of an offshore project. Executives say the challenges are merely short term. Offshore wind could provide as much as a quarter of U.S. power by 2050 without affecting wholesale electricity costs, according to a recent University of California, Berkeley study. New auctions, in which developers can factor in recent cost increases, continue drawing bidders. In Europe, energy majors BP and TotalEnergies won development rights in the North Sea worth $14 billion in July. Several U.S. coastal states hope to become hubs for new domestic manufacturing for offshore wind components, snaring a share of a new industry and a slice of $1 trillion in federal tax incentives and loans for a green-energy industrial economy, made available under the Inflation Reduction Act. Long-term conviction isn’t enough for suppliers that have been unnerved by delays, though. “It is frustrating right now,” said Morten Dyrholm, senior vice president at Vestas , the largest Western turbine maker. “We cannot just go ahead and build a lot of factories if we don’t see clear investment signals from developers.” Things have become choppy onshore, too. Wind installations on land halved in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, the slowest quarter in four years, according to the American Clean Power Association. Manufacturers have been struggling with profitability as they deliver ever-larger and more advanced machines, which are more efficient at making electricity. Now some say they are running into problems with wear and tear. “We have problems both offshore and onshore,” said Tim Proll-Gerwe, spokesman with Siemens Energy. The company, which had previously said quality issues related to its subsidiary’s flagship onshore turbines could cost up to $1.1 billion to fix, on Monday raised that estimate to about $1.75 billion. Siemens, which also forecast that it expects to lose about $5 billion this year, said it has a record-high backlog as demand for turbines soars. Blade supplier TPI Composites , which has agreements with several wind manufacturers, issued a profit warning last month that it was seeing higher inspection and repair costs. Appeared in the August 8, 2023, print edition as 'Wind Power Stumbles as Cost, Logistical Problems Mount'.
