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Comments 91051 to 91100:

  1. Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
    #98: "wind induced low frequency sound effects are real enough for those affected." That's an interesting turn of phrase. Are the effects of this sound real to all? Or real only to those affected? A study of the so-called wind turbine effect: There is no credible scientific evidence that low levels of wind turbine sound at 1 to 2Hz will directly affect the vestibular system. In fact, it is likely that the sound will be lost in the natural infrasonic background sound of the body. ... The body is a noisy system at low frequencies. In addition to the beating heart at a frequency of 1 to 2Hz, the body emits sounds from blood circulation, bowels, stomach, muscle contraction, and other internal sources. ... “Wind turbine syndrome” is not a recognized medical diagnosis, is essentially reflective symptoms associated with noise annoyance and is an unnecessary and confusing addition to the vocabulary on noise. This syndrome is not a recognized diagnosis in the medical community. There are no unique symptoms or combinations of symptoms that would lead to a specific pattern of this hypothesized disorder. The collective symptoms in some people exposed to wind turbines are more likely associated with annoyance to low sound levels. But of course, there's a wind turbine syndrome website, so it has to be real.
  2. Teaching Climate Science
    #17, Gilles: "computer simulations are never taken as evidence that things are real, ... no real validation that things would have happened like that without anthropogenic forcing." Clearly you do not understand Figure 2. The validation you claim to seek is there (its called matching the models to history). Without anthropogenic forcing, there is no match. But you've said that you're not really here to discuss such scientific goings-on, so you've rendered your own opinions on this question moot.
  3. Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
    "What you have to consider is that base load 24/7 from black coal plant generates electricity for 4-5 cents per kWhr, Gas, Nuclear and Geothermal are in the 8-12 cents range. Wind 7-12 cents (depending on site and without storage)." Apples & oranges Ken. Black Coal is only so cheap because it has received almost 100 years of 100% tax-payer support & a virtual monopoly in most energy markets-yet even then it took several decades for prices to fall below $1/kw-h. Even today Black Coal receives a number of generous tax-payer subsidies, like cheap water, reduced diesel fuel costs, free infrastructure & subsidized waste disposal & land rehabilitation. Yet not only are its supporters unwilling to consider a removal of these subsidies, but they complain about coal's competitors receiving *any* subsidies at all.
  4. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    #29, Gilles: "Iceland ... Electricity is already there !!! which is not the case of Hawaii I think." Another bit of fact-free dialog from the world according to Gilles. To burst the bubble with a fact or two: The 2009 Hawaii State Legislature enacted this goal into law by establishing a renewable portfolio standard of 40 percent and an energy efficiency standard of 30 percent by 2030 ... Hawaii ranks third in the nation ... in use of renewable energy relative to the state's total electricity production. In 2009, ... 19 percent of Hawaiian Electric, Maui Electric and Hawaii Electric Light companies’ sales came from renewable energy (including solar water heating) and quantifiable energy efficiency efforts. By 'electricity already there' in Iceland, I presume you mean hydro and geothermal resources? Some of that Icelandic electricity might one day be on its way to a European nation near you.
  5. Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
    "wind induced low frequency sound effects are real enough for those affected." As I've said, though-why aren't people living even *closer* to the wind-farms suffering from the same effects? It seems odd that no-one who has been paid to site wind turbines on their land has suffered ill effects, whilst people up to 20km away claim their health is being impacted. I'd be inclined to suggest that these people are just miffed at having a wind-farm in their niehgbourhood, or are annoyed at not having received money themselves.
  6. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    If you ask me, Jevons Paradox sounds over-simplistic. Case in point-I switched all the lights in my house from incandescent to globes to CFL's about 10 years ago. Now aside from the immediate energy savings (I now use about 1/5th of the electricity for my lighting needs than I needed back in the 1990's) there is also the simple fact that I've bought far fewer globes in the past decade than I did in the decade prior because-whereas my CFL's now last anywhere from 2-5 years, my old incandescents needed to be replaced every 2-6 months. So there is an energy saving there too, IMHO.
  7. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Of course, what a lot of people seem to forget is that CO2 isn't the *only* gas you get when you burn coal. Even after years of "cleaning" up emissions, coal-fired power stations are still major sources of Cadmium, Mercury & Radon-not to mention harmful particulate emissions that are believed responsible for asthma & lung disease. So even if the CO2 emitted could be defined as a "colourless, odourless gas, that's essential for life on this plant", you definitely can't say the same for all the other crap that comes with it!
  8. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Caerbannog #18 That was a catchy metaphore. I may use that one!
  9. Philippe Chantreau at 11:07 AM on 25 March 2011
    2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    What's this talk of photons having temperatures in Kelvins? A photon's energy depends on its frequency or wavelength, not on the temperature of its source, which is what Damorbel seems to imply. The better informed here correct me please, as this is the way I see it: the temperature of an EM radiation source affects the spectrum of the radiation and that's about it. An individual photon at a given frequency couldn't care less whether it came from a 5 gazillion degrees source or a light bulb, does it? If it does, how exactly does that manifest? A different spin angular momentum? Or what?
    Moderator Response: There is a common misconception that all photon sources output photons of only a single frequency that is determined by the temperature of the source. In fact, the blackbody radiation curve is a distribution of photons of multiple frequencies, with an increase in temperature causing a shift in that distribution of emitted photons so that more of the higher frequency/energy photons are emitted relative to the lower frequency/energy photons, but there still is emission of photons of multiple frequencies.

    Consequently, when somebody receives a photon of a given frequency, that person can state only the relative probabilities of the temperature of that photon's source. That photon could have come from a source of any temperature. As a commenter said a bit ago, photons do not carry ID cards.
  10. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    What are they implying by "colorless"? Is that attribute supposed to make the greenhouse gas better in some way? Sounds racist (yeah I know I'm being silly but so is the article).
  11. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    32 Dana, Yet the Pliocene had a CO2 350ppm and was 3-5C hotter, taking into account that i slong equilibrium and only 60% is realised in 100years that leaves 1.8-2.4C for 350ppm. So 450ppm seems a best risky considering what we talking about and seeing the changes already happening would prefer to be far below 2C as well, 1.5C is double what we've had already and that is becoming sobbering.
  12. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Let's say that a privately-owned dam breaks and floods a town. Would the residents be able to sue the dam's owner for flooding the town with "a harmless, colorless liquid that’s essential for life on this planet"?
  13. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Making a country carbon-neutral has very much to do with available technology. Iceland, for example, with about 300 000 inhabitants, has no chance of making electric vehicles for transportation themselves - probably not even biofuels for their fisheries. Not even a big economy like Germany's can develop/produce everything needed itself. But whether opportunities are used, depends much on national (or, in Europe, the EU) policies. For instance, Germany already in 2009 had a 7% biofuel use in transportation, while some other EU countries had virtually zero.
  14. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    If the Jevons paradox claims that improving energy efficiency results in higher overall energy use, it's wrong on very basic economic levels. Let's say average fuel efficiency of automobiles rose from 25 mpg to 250 mpg, and average miles driven per person per year was 10,000 just prior. For Jevons paradox to be correct, the average miles driven would have to increase to beyond 100,000 miles. This is somewhat of a simplistic example, as it doesn't take into account the extra energy use required to manufacture the vehicle and dispose of it, or extra road maintenance for any increased miles driven, so the actual number would be somewhat less than 100,000, but one would be hard-pressed to make the numbers work for Jevons paradox. So if auto fuel efficiency did increase tenfold, there would be more miles driven, but nowhere near enough to offset the energy savings. There isn't enough spare time in the day to drive that much. Another reason is the price elasticity of demand, which is fairly inelastic for current gas prices. Just as doubling fuel costs has small effect on reduction in consumption, so would halving fuel costs (even less effect). One can see this in U.S. petroleum consumption from 2005 to 2008. There were huge price increases but only modest reductions in consumption, much of which could be attributed to the declining economy in 2008-2009. There are also fuel efficiency standards that are beginning to take effect. These various factors, however, can't be disentangled easily by eyeballing some numbers. U.S. Primary energy consumption by source
  15. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Re Jevon's paradox: From my experience, the increase in energy use after substantial efficiency improvements is usually some fraction of the saving. As a typical example, people increase indoor temperature after installing heat pumps, resulting in an actual halving of energy consumption rather than the potential (and maybe projected) reduction to a third. In the few cases where total energy use actually increases, there is usually an underlying latent need that now can be met. Generally, it may be a good idea, as CBDunkerson suggests, to introduce policy measures to support the intended changes, but it is not always strictly necessary. What is, generally, necessary, is high enough energy prices to encourage efficient use and avoid too much wasteful use. For instance, what the billionaires of the world spend for personal use, won't make much of a difference. But what the millionaires do, will make a difference. So for a policy to be efficient, it must target them (too). So far, energy use has been way too cheap in most of the world to sufficiently encourage savings and efficiency, but things are changing now.
  16. Daniel Bailey at 10:21 AM on 25 March 2011
    Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    @ getricks (93) Welcome to Skeptical Science! To put it kindly, your friend is misinformed. Fortunately, you do not have to become climate scientists to become better informed on the Urban Heat Island (or any other issue). That's what Skeptical Science is here for! There is an immense amount of reference material discussed here and it can be a bit difficult at first to find an answer to your friend's questions. That's why we recommend that Newcomers, Start Here and then learn The Big Picture. I also recommend watching this video on why CO2 is the biggest climate control knob in Earth's history. Further general questions can usually be be answered by first using the Search function in the upper left of every Skeptical Science page to see if there is already a post on it (odds are, there is). If you still have questions, use the Search function located in the upper left of every page here at Skeptical Science and post your question on the most pertinent thread. Remember to frame your questions in compliance with the Comments Policy and lastly, to use the Preview function below the comment box to ensure that any html tags you're using work properly. Hope that helps! The Yooper
  17. Teaching Climate Science
    "I see here no real validation that things would have happened like that without anthropogenic forcing." Gilles - I have a great idea for validation. Why dont we stop producing any anthropomorphic forcings and see climate settles to predicted natural forcings?
  18. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - the gambit is a way to end the argument. If you arent philosphically prepared to accept experimental evidence as the arbiter, then yes it is a well-deserved attack on you and meant to expose you to other reader of this. On the other hand, if you do accept that reality is the arbiter, then then the game is played like this: An experiment is proposed: (you can propose it). You calculate by any means you like, the outcome of the experiment. I am sure you mean to do within your understanding of physics. Someone else (not you), calculates the experiment via the relevant textbook physics. If you are right, then time for us to help you polish a paper. If textbook is right, then time for you to go back to school and stop complaining the climate scientists dont understand physics.
  19. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    ranyl #31 - they're talking about limiting the warming to 2°C, which is around 450 ppm CO2. Realistically even 450 ppm is an extremely ambitious goal at this point.
  20. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    If the world took on Ecofys approach and all things went renewable what is the COe2ppm in 2050? Calculating that would mean accumulative adding all the CO2e cost of creating and maintaining the renewables (e.g. trinitrofloride for some PV's, off shore wind maintainence) and the infra structure to support them, plus re-building the entire car fleet and new infra structure necessary for electric cars, plus getting all those batteries and replacing them regularly (what is the environmental costs of all those proposed batteries and their replacements?), plus replacing all white goods with efficient ones, plus all embodeid energy for the materials to renovate homes and build new ones, plus adaptation infra-structure embodied energy, plus replacing extreme weather damage to homes and goods (flood damage), plus any grown biofuels CO2e debt, plus all the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels until 2050 when they are fully replaced and so on. Then consider all the eco-system changes from producing things like tyres, heavy metals, plastics, bricks, rockwool like insulations, copper, water (for cooling smelting processes, embodied water in things due to production (Aral Sea)), waste creation and the associated CO2e disturbances due to those eco-system disturbances and things maybe start to add up and that isn't even starting to address communications (an iphone has a large environmental legacy), increasing population demands, farming, international trading and fishing! Is it possible to get to a safe CO2 concentration (i.e. 350ppm) in the atmosphere by 2050 and still use all that power necessary to maintain the high octane westernised lifestyle?
  21. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    Hi again Mr moderator,I promise i wont bother you too much, the fact is i am mr average and am trying to form a firm opinion on this subject,,I put your links to a friend of mine who claims to be in the know and have been discussing this with. He does not accept this as a truthful representation of what is claimed. His exact word are "the term Urban Heat island effect [-----snip------]
    Moderator Response: (Rob P) - Your comment is off-topic, please post on the relevant thread, for instance: Does Urban Heat Island effect exaggerate global warming trends?
  22. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    The only way the reports key assumption of 15% lower demand in 2050 could happen is if there is a severe, worldwide recession, making our current recession look like small potatoes.
  23. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Caveat: I am not a lawyer. In common law jurisdictions much of tort law is founded on the principle of a duty of care. In brief, this means that we all owe to each other a duty of care in our general activities. A breach of the duty of care could range from driving a vehicle with a known brakes defect to dumping waste materials in a river. Anybody occupying land has a specific duty in UK law to see that no harmful thing escapes from that land. The principle is of very general application - it includes humans as 'things'. The fact that CO2 is invisible would - I suggest - count in favor of any plaintiff. Industrial emitters of CO2 know daily that they are emitting this gas in large quantities. The average 'legal neighbor' is not aware of the presence and harmful effects of the gas. In the UK there are principles of civil law which lay a greater burden of damages on a misfeasor who by virtue of expertise knows - or should know - more than the average person about the thing complained of. Persistent statements by emitters of CO2 and their agents that CO2 is harmless to humans, good for plants, a natural gas, etc. could be used against them in a court of common law jurisprudence as evidence of fraudulent misstatement. A fraudulent misstatement need not be completely untrue. It need only be shown to have been made in an attempt to persuade the target audience of that statement that the thing complained of is not a cause for concern. Sources: Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 (26 May 1932)
    Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co Ltd [1970] UKHL 2 (06 May 1970)
    The sources cited are from the UK case law. Of course, courts in other jurisdictions are not bound by House of Lords decisions - but they are entitled to take the arguments and findings into consideration as guidance. Caveat venditor. Again: I am not a lawyer.
  24. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    27 : CB : the great advantage of Iceland is that they have already much more renewable electricity produced than they need - Electricity is already there !!! which is not the case of Hawaii I think.
  25. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    concerning the Jevons paradox, the problem can be best viewed as a marginal cost/benefit problem (Nash equilibrium). Starting for the situation given here, with a overall integral consumption of 500 Gt of C , say (I didn't check the figures), what would be the marginal cost 'including all externalities you want and the marginal benefit to burn juste one more t of C ? if you can't demonstrate that cost > benefit everywhere in the world, then nobody can insure that just this t of C won't be burnt. And so on for the next t ...
  26. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Gilles, it isn't a country, but I expect that Hawaii will be one of the first places in the world to fully convert. Currently they get most of their energy by shipping in oil and burning it... which is just insane given their abundance of solar, wind, tide, and geothermal energy sources. Electric cars are also much more viable when you live on an island, which inherently limits how far you will ever need to drive.
  27. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    dana#15 I never stated that no country should go to zero FF before Iceland, if some of them succeed in doing that, that's fine for me! I'm just expecting that countries with zero FF and a lot of renewable electricity would be in a much better condition and should be the first ones to achieve that - so i'm eager to look at the speed at which they'll do the transition.
  28. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    I don't know if you in Skeptical Science, being largely down in Australia, know about The Washington Times. They are nowhere near as good and reputable a paper as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Rather, they were founded by the 'Moonies' (supporters of 'Reverend' Sun Myung Moon), to support his peculiar world view -- which includes some very conservative ideas: so a lot of neocon propaganda has found its way into print through the Washington Times. This poor and biased coverage of AGW issues is only one example of this trend.
  29. Rob Honeycutt at 08:55 AM on 25 March 2011
    The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    graphicconception... That would be true but it's a bit of a red herring. If there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere life also can't exist on Earth. If you would like to watch a really great lecture you should try this one by Richard Alley called The Biggest Control Knob. And definitely keep cruising the articles here on SkS. There's a lot of material.
  30. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    Earth, CO2 free? But the argument isn't really relevant to anything discussed for reducing emissions. The idea is to find suitable CO2 levels that stabilize the climate to which humans are all adapted to.
  31. The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    graphicconeption, with 0% atmospheric CO2 most green plants would die. Without those plants most herbivores would starve. Without those herbivores most carnivores and omnivores would starve. Yet life (even human life) would survive in drastically reduced numbers. Of course, on the other hand, with 15% atmospheric CO2 most animals on the planet would collapse bleeding from every orifice and die within a matter of seconds. Most plants would suffocate and die within a matter of days. And the climate impacts would be unimaginable... possibly sufficient to wipe out all life. That said, neither of those scenarios is remotely possible... making the skeptic argument just a red herring.
  32. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Djon, you (like the articles you and les have cited) are making unwarranted assumptions about 'motives' behind citing Jevons paradox. I'm all for energy efficiency improvements. My position is just that they should be tied to price controls such that the efficiency improvement leads to a matching decrease in fuel usage rather than the efficiency change essentially being 'wasted' as people react to the decreased price with increased usage. The plan above proposes that we will be able to reduce all fossil fuel usage by 50% while realizing dramatic reductions in costs. Does that seem realistic to you? If costs go down that significantly why wouldn't people use more energy? We shouldn't go into a massive redesign of the underlying foundation of modern society looking to get the job done on the cheap. Keep prices level (or raise them if you need to) until the conversion is nearly complete and then if you find that costs are lower than is being charged for you can start decreasing costs... provided you are ready to ramp up generation if needed.
  33. graphicconception at 08:42 AM on 25 March 2011
    The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
    I have heard it claimed by skeptics that without CO2 in the atmosphere life on earth as we know it would cease. Is that true? I looked in your list of skeptical arguments but could not find anything that seemed to be relevant.
  34. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    A search of the literature reveals that well over 99% of writers since the Ancient Greeks support the theory that the Earth is round. It is obvious that dissenting argument has been quashed, else THE TRUTH would have long since been known. I am still trying to discover who is keeping the secret time travel papers. After all - how could all those people have reached a consensus without a time travel machine? I guess that the same argument holds for the global warming theory: how else did they get Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius and others to sign up to the IPCC consensus that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? /end feeble attempt at humor. ( Sorry for the CAPS. )
  35. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    I posted an hour before, and my post disappeared; OK it was in French, but I hope this was not the reason to delete it; so what was the reason?
    Moderator Response: [DB] Pretty much. You may try the French version of this site linked at top. Or, seeing as your English is pretty good, repost it in English here.
  36. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Rob #20 - thanks, I'm using that Chu reference in my next post.
  37. The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
    I promised a while back to comment further on this story about mass extinctions. Anything I might have to say now pales into insignificance compared with Oliver Knevitt's article on this topic: beware_metastudies_example_whale_evolution ------ Daniel: thank you for linking to my Arctic ice article. A further update is nearing completion. idunno: I mentioned in my blog that I agree with what Daniel Bailey has to say in reply to your comments above. I repeat that agreement here for the benefit of Skeptical Science readers. This is an area of Arctic -related science that warrants urgent study.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You're welcome & look forward to the next update. In the meantime, interested readers might like to see this:

    Global Distribution of Methane Hydrates

  38. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Re Jevons etc. This article, and it's predecessor - linked there in - is a good read. Rebounds and Jevons: Nobody Goes There Anymore. It’s Too Crowded Even more amusing to note that Jevons him self, 1865, went into a wiled tizzy at the though of peak-coal ... ... turns out we're pretty inventive species. I don't see why we can't substitute to avoid the bad affects of oil, as we did to avoid the limitations of coal and, before that horse power.
  39. Teaching Climate Science
    rhjames, you might want to look at the global cooling bet for a very particular set of model runs that predicted global cooling. What Keenlyside et al 08 were attempting to do was interesting but as the article discusses, the model arent there yet. (And real data isnt backing the prediction). At the article on Realclimate -what the ipcc models really say you will see a graph of many individual model runs. Each is a possible future. It shows many possible short term (10-20 year) possibilities with no way to say one is more likely than another. However, the long term trend for all these possibilities is unequivocal.
  40. Wrong Answers dot com
    cloa513 - response here
  41. Temp record is unreliable
    Responding cloa513 from here If someone was averaging temperatures in the way you seem to think they are, then you would have a point. However, if you see Hansen 2008, the keepers of temperature record would agree and so that is NOT how it is done. It has been pointed out to you before with the links to the actual method, so why are you persisting with this erroneous strawman?
  42. Preventing Misinformation
    dana1981 at 07:25 AM, can you provide some references that quantify the change in such events globally.
  43. Preventing Misinformation
    CBDunkerson at 21:39 PM, I believe it is even much more complicated than what you indicated. Whilst changes to the total amount of cloud coverage is yet to be adequately quantified, and historically probably impossible to determine, there is also the matter of geographic distribution. If the distribution changes over a varying surface then the solar radiation either being absorbed or reflected by the soil or water will also change. Human influence on the landscape causing deforestation, particularly through the era of wooden boat building obviously changed the landscape generally in coastal regions which in turn changed the cloud coverage pattern as reflected in the known changes in precipitation patterns.
  44. Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
    Gilles, as far as I can see your modus operani here and at RC is like a high school debating team, marshalling any argument possible against the idea of any action to reduce CO2 omissions. This includes pontificating with sweeping unsupported statements. Now, the political debate needs to be informed by the best science not disinformation and this site provided invaluable support to this by countering skeptic disinformation with well-referenced supporting science. Serious skeptics can counter with other science and data. As far as I can see, you do neither. If you arent interested in the science, then I suggest your debating style is more appropriate to likes of Climate Progress.
  45. Rob Honeycutt at 07:46 AM on 25 March 2011
    A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    Yes, boys and girls, that is the critical point, the point where the falling cost of renewables crosses the rising cost of fossil fuels (coal really). That is the inflection point where we have a whole new ballgame. Get your chips on the table. Where you gonna place your bets? FF or renewable? (Remember, the market rewards those who bet early and often if they turn out to be right.)
  46. Rob Honeycutt at 07:37 AM on 25 March 2011
    A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    As if on cue, Energy Secretary Steven Chu states that, "Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel."
  47. Preventing Misinformation
    johnd - it's well established that climate change "loads the dice" and makes floods and a number of other extreme weather events more likely to happen. What used to be a 1 in 100 event may become 1 per decade, for example.
  48. Preventing Misinformation
    dana1981 at 06:27 AM, can you clarify how you think we should view the labeling of these extreme events. You have it correct in recognising them as weather events, and thus right in attaching them to a particular location. However when talking in terms of climate, particularly global climate, can you show that whilst the 2010 Tennessee floods may be able to be deemed as a 1 in 1000 year event for that particular location in that particular state, did it alter the total number of those deemed 1 in 1000 year events that occur periodically world wide? We expect weather patterns to constantly shift, so we need to be certain that we aren't being held hostage to merely shifting weather patterns.
  49. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    I should add, I suppose the conclusion "the plan above calls for cost savings from energy efficiency... which means that they don't intend to keep costs artificially level" would make sense if Jevons paradox actually effects in the real world as strong as CBDunkerson originally asserted.
  50. A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
    CBDunkerson, No one, that I know of, denies that Jevons paradox exists and has some effect. What's at issue is whether it completely wipes out the effects of gains in efficiency. As to the black hole which you say you don't believe energy taxes go into, your belief in it seemed to be implied when you said "the plan above calls for cost savings from energy efficiency... which means that they don't intend to keep costs artificially level". That conclusion ignored the fact that society as a whole could realise cost savings from energy efficiency despite the monetary cost of, for instance, controlling the temperature of a particular house staying the same due to energy taxes.

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