Re: Overshoot
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:33 am
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/solar-a ... 35/411813/
Solar and wind comprise 61% of 2015 capacity additions, gas contributes 35%
Capacity additions in the United States slowed last year, but renewable generation made up more than half of the 14,468 MW completed in 2015, according to an analysis by SNL Energy.
Wind accounted for 47% of new generation capacity, followed by natural gas (35%) and solar (14%).
Last year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that capacity additions would begin to slow, and from 2018 to 2024 the agency believes additions will average less than 4 GW annually.
And take a look at this:
https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazar ... sis-90.pdf
[img width=650]https://i.imgur.com/9ahpCCD.png[/img]
Observe how the only fossil fuel that still has the potential to be cheaper than any of the renewables is combined-cycle natural gas, and it is already being beaten out by wind in many markets.
I hear what you're saying about things like limited landmass available for wind and solar plants, rare earth metals being rare and the like. It is true by definition that nothing is literally limitless. But Catton is (was) much more worried by the overshoot. Not as much by the limitation of human carrying capacity but the fact that he believes we've overshot it with fossil fuels.
After 10 or 20 years of new capacity being more renewable than fossil-fueled, and with the closure of old fossil burners and replacement with this cleaner, more renewable new capacity, that overshoot is going to shrink. It already is. As renewables come to make up more and more of the grid--they already are--the overshoot will diminish and eventually disappear. And with no overshoot, there's really no problem; no mass die-off, no destruction of the standard of living, nothing traumatic like that. We can live with a limited carrying capacity. Cotton acknowledged that we did just that before fossil fuels. Population growth will fall, real estate will become expensive, things like that. That's basically Japan! We humans can clearly manage.
The growth of renewable fuel sources as economically competitive with fossil-burners gives me great hope, honestly. It's not a theory. It's happening before our very eyes.