Samuelson, Washington Post, opines that regarding climate change, curb your enthusiasm. It is not that the recent international conference in Paris did not take significant steps to check global warming. It did. Nearly 200 countries committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (if possible). The goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times was reaffirmed. The trouble is that what is being attempted is so fundamentally difficult that even these measures may be wildly unequal to the task.
Renewable energy ... mainly wind and solar power, is supposed to rescue us. Quite likely, it will not. True, renewable energy is expanding rapidly in the U.S. In the next 2 years, the solar industry expects to double its installed U.S. capacity. In 2014, wind generation was up 51% from 2011, according to government figures. Moreover, costs are said to have fallen sharply. The wind industry puts its decline at 60% over the past four years, the solar industry reports a 70% drop since 2009. But these achievements need to be qualified.
For starters, the renewables rapid growth comes off a tiny base. As a result, wind supplied only 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2014. Solar contribution was smaller, about 1% for 2020, the industry target is 3.5%. Global figures are lower. The Economist magazine puts renewables share of world energy production at 1%. The fact that wind and solar are heavily subsidized in the U.S, through tax breaks, suggests that recent cost reductions have not yet made renewables competitive with other energy sources.
Another handicap is physics ... wind and solar generate electricity only when the sun shines or the wind blows. They need backup power-grid supplies. This has not been a big problem in the U.S., because we have many base power plants... fueled by coal and natural gas, that can provide backup.
But notice the lack of mention by Samuelson regarding nuclear power, the best solution. Why is that?
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