Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 Next
Comments 2801 to 2850:
-
bobhisey at 05:34 AM on 10 February 2023Clean energy permitting reform needed to boost economy, protect climate and burn less coal
The recently available NASA satellite of infra-red transmission of earth's radiation clearly shows that no energy is escaping the earth in the wavelength range where CO2 can effectively absorb it. (The 14-16micron range). Thus there is no energy left in this range for more CO2 to absorb!
So the whole "decarbonization" effort is an exercise in futility! All the models seen are thus fatally flawed and should be junked on sight.
Green energy is a massive misallocation of resources. More should be spent to find the true cause of global warming.
See NASA Technical Memorandum 103957, Appendices E and F.
For full discussion, see "Carbon Dioxide-Not Guilty" on Kindle for 99c. Or email me at bobhiseyatcomcast.net and I will send a free pdf of the booklet.
I challenge anyone to refute the basic physics of my position. And welcome it!
Moderator Response:[BL] You have made this baseless claim previously on another thread, and have failed to respond to the criticisms there.Failure to engage in discussion when people respond is not acceptable. Please read the Comments Policy.
We are not interested in buying your book or engaging in an email discussion.
-
Bob Loblaw at 01:44 AM on 10 February 2023The escalator rises again
I don't have the stomach to go over to WUWT, but the author of this blog post has also reposted it on his own blog, and here have been some interesting comments over there.
Willis Eschenbach, of WUWT fame, has commented, and posted a graphic of what he calls "an actual structural breakpoint analysis" for the period 1969 to now. He draws attention to the steps, claiming "this is not done by 'cherry picking' but by mathematical analysis, this brings up the interesting question … what is causing the jumps?".
Spolier alert: the "jumps" are an artifact of an inappropriate statistical analysis, and Willis has no explanation of any physical process to explain them, other than a brief hand-waving about El Nino events. But let's entertain the possibility for a bit.
I pointed out in the comments over at ATTP's that the month-to-month change in the anomalies (i.e., this month's anomaly minus last month's) shows absolutely nothing to suggest that the anomaly goes through any sort of slow change (as suggested by the linear segments) interspersed with sudden jumps. If you take the entire BEST record, this is what you see for the month-to-month change in the anomalies:
The month-to-month change in anomaly looks pretty much like random noise to me. If Willis' hypothesis of meaningful "jumps" existed, I'd expect to see periods of fairly steady (i.e., unchanging) anomalies, with periodic short episodes of large changes representing "jumps" No such structures appear in the data.
I also took the information from the graphic Willis posted of his "structural breakpoint analysis" and added the six line segments he created to a graph of the 1969-present BEST anomalies. This is a reproduction of that information from Willis' graph:
The point I made over at ATTP's is that Willis six-segment linear fit to the data provides virtually no additional statistical explanation of the overall data. The equation on the above graphic is the basic linear fit for the entire data set. Note that the r2 value is 0.81. The regression standard error is 0.145 C - indicating the remaining "unexplained" variation in the residuals from the regression.
How much better does Willis do with six line segments (and five breakpoints)? Not much. The accumulated standard error from the six regression lines is 0.133C - just over 0.01C better than the simple fit.
If we look at some statistics for the six segments, we get:
End Year Standard error P-value R^2 1976.8 0.131 0.07 0.0353 1986.9 0.141 0.764 0.0008 1994.7 0.141 0.25 0.0143 2001.8 0.137 0.376 0.0095 2014.9 0.119 0.005 0.0504 2022.9 0.137 0.126 0.0001 The P-values do not account for auto-correlation (there is lots), so take them with a grain of salt. But only one of Willis' line segments looks remotely significant, and the r2 values are very low.
The fact is that nearly all of the statistical explanation in Willis' analysis is in the jumps, but there is no reason (looking at the month-to-month changes) to expect this analysis to come up with anything that is not just a misrepresentation of the noise.
A basic linear regression does almost as well, with only two parameters (slope and intercept). In Willis' analysis, he needs 17 parameters: six lines (slope and intercept = 12 parameters) and five break-point years. This is not particularly parsimonious.
Splitting a gradual increase in the data into a bunch of "jumps" that are a function of noise may be entertaining, but it's not particularly scientific.
-
Eclectic at 13:12 PM on 9 February 2023The escalator rises again
The (Monckton) thread comments count is now up to 566. The monthly Moncktonian review of the New Pause has always been a very "popular" thread for the denizens at WUWT. This one, with over 500, is probably well above its usual level ~ but I am not going to bother to check back through the past 12 months of records there.
(A) As usual, Monckton turns a blind eye to Ocean Heat Content
(B) The long term UAH data trend continues to rise.
(C) The Monckton thread commenters have many wrangles about what constitutes statistical significance +/- confidence levels +/- Dr Pat Frank's peculiar ideas of Growth of Uncertainties. What many of them seem to have forgotten, is that this is not a case of statistical analysis of an abstract set of figures, but an analysis of physical events where the underlying causations are known.
-
MA Rodger at 05:59 AM on 9 February 2023The escalator rises again
I think Monckton was using RSS TLTv3.3 for previous rants flat warming trends. He now switches to UAH TLTv6.0 although the wobbly nature of the TLT record is the cause of this nonsense (not the slow rate of TLT warming) and which record you use thrugh recent years (since 2005) doesn't make a significant difference. I think using RSS TLTv4.0 would today only provide a 100-month of flat trend.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:32 AM on 9 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
Everyone wanting to better understand the required ‘transition’ should read the Report that is discussed in the Story of the Week. That would help develop the awareness and understanding of the required transition to most effectively limit harm done and develop sustainable improvements.
A key point is that ‘Social Transition (socioeconomic-political systemic change)’ is required. Technological transition without that systemic change is likely to be the most harmful pathway (the BAU case). ‘Climate problem solutions’ developed by the BAU socioeconomic-political system would be harmful in many ways. The harmfulness of the technological transition can be severe if the focus is on the perceived climate change harm done by energy use. Other harmful impacts of energy use could be ignored or excused.
Reduced energy consumption, limited to ‘necessary consumption’, with a transition to less harmful energy systems, all harms considered (not just climate impacts), is the least harmful ‘solution pathway’. What has developed is significant ‘unnecessary energy use’. And a lot of harm reduction, not just climate impact harm, can be done almost immediately, and could have happened 30 years ago, without technological improvements. That significant, but essential, ‘social transition’ is required to limit the harm done to the future generations.
The ‘resistance to reduced consumption and responsibly learning to be less harmful’ by many wealthier people, and people who aspire to be like them, through the past 30 years has created the current situation. The situation is now more harmful than it needed to be. Indeed, because the current situation is more harmful, the ‘responsible transition to limit the overshoot of 1.5 C impacts and bring impacts back below 1.5 C’ could involve changes that some current day people would see as ‘draconian reductions of their developed perceptions of success and limits on their opportunity for future perceptions of benefit’ (for some people, any external limitation of their freedom to believe and do as they please is Draconian).
A related point is that the harm of 1.0 C of warming is significantly unacceptable. Arguing that 2.0 C warming will not produce significant risk of unstoppable feedback is an example of the problem of ‘promoting the positives to the detriment of consideration of the negatives’. It needs to be understood that an overshoot of the 1.5 C target is a serious problem that requires rapid correction to limit the harm done. It can be argued that future generations will make the required correction. But that argument is a harmful misleading systemic BAU ‘kicking the can down the road’ cycle-of-harm argument. It is understandably important to break the systemic cycle of ‘excusing harm done because of the opportunity for benefiting from being more harmful’.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 01:55 AM on 9 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
Eddie and Slum... Are you both aware that the 2°C limit is at least partially predicated on the fact that was how warm the Eemian interglacial got? There are reasonable assumptions that under 2°C the climate system would not set off feedbacks that send us toward far higher temps. There are also reasonable assumptions that the actions that are taking place can put us on a path to keep the earth at or below 2°C.
The challenge before us (humanity) is truly massive. Yelling that the ship isn't turning fast enough doesn't change its direction. Real energy solutions do. Positive support for those solutions does. Barring the use of private jets does vitually nothing. Putting a price on carbon so that flying in those jets comes in line with the damages they impose, along with all other FF uses, does.
The technical solutions for successfully transitioning off of FF's are already here. They're continually being improved upon. Spreading rhetoric that the game is already lost is doing the bidding of the FF's industry, because when people believe all is lost they give up trying. And that's exactly what the FF's industry wants.
-
EddieEvans at 00:29 AM on 9 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
Sorry, but even "ground all airplanes, set a date for outlawing the use of private fossil fuel vehicles, eliminate industrial animal agriculture, place a moratorium on the manufacture of cement, and diminish all forms of international trade that require any form of physical transport."
The rich and powerful will continue to march on paving over earth until they too bottom out. I'm watching CO2 ppm climb and people are arguing over bedroom ethics.
-
EddieEvans at 00:20 AM on 9 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
"So we need Draconian rather than Transitioning solutions in order to get out of trouble. Maybe someone can think up a few less Robespierre than mine."
I was there quite a while ago, long before I finally focused on the fossil fuel industry's deception, and then "took a deep dive" into climate and science. I reached draconian language on ecology as a critical science when answering the question, "Does biodiversity matter." Malthus may have been wrong about his philosophy in general, but he got the "geometrical growth right," as Darwin would see growth as a key to the struggle for life. I know that we typically use "exponential growth" these days. I see humanity making a big thud rather than smoothly sliding into a deranged future.
-
slumgullionridge at 23:44 PM on 8 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
Rob Honeycutt @13 ...I should report that perhaps no one else on this site, save self, are suggesting a Draconian solution, but serious conversations are taking place across the globe around this topic. Jared Diamond and others have pointed out that civilizations have collapsed for not doing what they clearly knew needed doing to avoid catastrophe. Dithering is a human weakness well understood by the wise, but the wise are seldom in charge. Transitioning would be nice, it's "scientific", but is usually met by the resistance of the masses, who winch at the idea that something other than their Lord God will save them. Then, of course, there are always the Lordless whose motives rely on global conquest, who can't be bothered with climate mitigation when such a prize as the entire planet looms in their vision.
Already, the global ice is disappearing. That tipping point has been crossed. Transitioning will not remediate this loss because transitioning has already failed. We can't get back the species loss or speed up the AMOC, undo the acidification of the oceans which have already wiped out significant volumes of primary production, etc. So we need Draconian rather than Transitioning solutions in order to get out of trouble. Maybe someone can think up a few that are less Robespierre than mine.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 12:53 PM on 8 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
slumgullionridge @12... Paragraph1: Robespierre would like a word with you.
Remaining aragraphs: No one is suggesting ending use of FF use before alternatives are in place. Hence the oft-used term "transition" from FF use.
-
slumgullionridge at 12:22 PM on 8 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
Well, I'm new here and I don't understand many of the "arguments" made by "some" of the contributors. There has never been a time in history when the wealthy have ever "rescued" the "proletariat". At the same time, an attack on the weathy (check: Marxist, especially Soviet or 20th Century Chinese history) didn't benefit the "poor". So it seems to me that any effort to escape the conditions leading to an uninhabitable planet might need to be made through mutual suffering, everyone will have to take their lumps.
Some suggestions: ground all airplanes, set a date for outlawing the use of private fossil fuel vehicles, eliminate industrial animal agriculture, place a moratorium on the manufacture of cement, and diminish all forms of international trade that require any form of physical transport.
That will cause all to suffer according to their own particular level of discomfort. The burden will be borne by everyone according to the "lifeboat principle" which burdens, yet saves everyone "on board".
If I understand the science correctly, cutting emissions along with its collateral injury to the environment, the above actions are enough to reverse climate change, not just mitigate/adapt to it. We could then expect the ice to return, the Amazon and other jungles to reforest, the oceans' pH to rise, many extinctions to slow down, and the human population explosion to shift into reverse. Localism will be the central operating principle of this effort, as it was before the age of Mercantilism (cir 1,500) and the advent of Capitalism (1776). The historical evidence shows that humanity entered this quandary at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution which is why, I suspect, we now label this the "Anthropogenic"?
-
prove we are smart at 11:07 AM on 8 February 2023Clean energy permitting reform needed to boost economy, protect climate and burn less coal
Here in my Australia, a country argueably one of the best for solar power generation, a somewhat similar situation exists.theconversation.com/a-clean-energy-grid-means-10-000km-of-new-transmission-lines-they-can-only-be-built-with-community-backing-187438.
I have always thought one of the keys to making unanimous the decisions to close our fossil fuel power generating plants, ( Well not for the political parties fossil fuel corporate overloads), is to guarantee full re-employment for the displaced workers. In a world of promises betrayed and bullshit COPS, this "survey" too, will be buried till before the next election cycle, www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/news/australian-energy-employment-report-the-key-to-unlocking-renewable-workforce-potential
-
EddieEvans at 20:24 PM on 7 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
One Planet Only Forever
Wow! Great comment and I'm glad that I brought it up. On Amazon's page, a couple of reviews stand out; it would be helpful if your comments were shared there. I'll attach them to my blog for kicks. We must remind people that humanity generally carries intergenerational liabilities, deadly liabilities to life, and now intergenerational.
-
Eclectic at 14:29 PM on 7 February 2023The escalator rises again
at WUWT : "The New Pause lengthens again: 101 months ..."
At my time of writing, that WUWT thread has 462 comments (in roughly 3 days). Much of it is frothing-at-the-mouth stuff, including some also having total denial of any climate effect of CO2.
The WUWT author uses only the UAH satellite-derived temperatures of the middle/upper troposphere. And uses a magic wand on the data.
Jim Hunt at #6 (above) touches on the hydrological cycle. Which is getting uncomfortably close to the Great Unmentionable at WUWT blogsite. Which is the continued rise of the elephantine Ocean Heat Content. The OHC rise knocks the author's [Mr Monckton's] claims into a cocked hat. But it is never mentioned on Monckton's regular monthly "New Pause Lengthens" article. Is such mention normally deleted by the WUWT moderators ~ or is the monthly Monckton bunfight so engrossing that the participants never lift their eyes to see the forest itself?
-
nigelj at 06:12 AM on 7 February 2023The escalator rises again
"The New Pause lengthens again: 101 months and counting …"
This astounds me. Have these denialists nothing better to do? Haven't they noticed a decades long repeating pattern of pauses of various sizes such that the temperature trend is step like? Havent they figured out by now that is how the warming trend progresses? Haven't they studied the obvious reasons it would be like this, such as the influence of solar cycles, etc,etc?
Are they really that lacking in thought? Or perhaps its more of an activity that just makes them feel good and gives them comfort by throwing mud at perceived enemies! Or perhaps its just wanting to protect vested interests for as long as possible. Or are they just cranks? Probably WUWT is an unholy alliance of all these types of personalities and more.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:09 AM on 7 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
EddieEvans,
I think the simplest way to express the fundamental problem is the popularity of the belief in the 'Glory of Freedom of everyone to believe and do whatever they please/desire'.
Transitioning to a society governed/limited by the pursuit of learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others is the 'eternal' challenge. And it is a very challenging challenge.
There is likely no lasting future for humanity on this amazing planet if that socioeconomic-political transition is not successfully achieved globally, the sooner the better.
The Report "Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2023. The plausibility of a 1.5°C limit to global warming – Social drivers and physical processes; Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS)." is a helpful presentation of understanding focused on the need for 'systemic transition' to limit harm done.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 03:52 AM on 7 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
EddieEvans @8,
The link to the finds of the term "Corruption" in A Perfect Moral Storm is informative. But I would recommend that people should read the full book (I read it years ago). The main concern is "Moral Corruption". And that type of corruption occurs because of the temptation to focus on 'personal positives (benefits)' and evade learning about harm done (the negatives). That moral corruption is easier to tempt people into when the 'personal benefits are perceived to be significant (due to promotion of the positives)' and the harm done happens to people who have little ability to 'get back at the people harming them' (note that moral corruption is even easier to develop when the harm is done to non-human life).
Indeed inter-generational harm done to other humans, and the related moral corruption, will be the hardest 'harm done to humans' to limit. But the 'physically remote' harm done to current day Others by morally corrupted regional populations and their leadership is also a very hard thing to limit the harm of. And, of course, when evidence of harm done is involved, the moral corruption of 'doubting that the harm is real or is a serious concern' can be very popular via 'simplistically questioning the science (especially when paired with promotion of the positives of the harmful beliefs and actions)' in an attempt to delay people learning about the the harm being done.
You may be interested in reviewing the comments I have posted earlier on SkS regarding Stephen Gardiner's book. Search SkS comments for 'Gardiner'.
The first comment I made on SkS regarding Gardiner was in April 2019, "Comment 7 on the SkS OP Protecting oil companies instead of the climate-vulnerable is elitist" . That comment also points to an enlightening, and still very relevant, 2012 SkS posting by Andy Skuce. And the comment string includes my early attempts to present the key points made by Gardiner.
-
EddieEvans at 22:46 PM on 6 February 2023The escalator rises again
Thanks for posting this OHC abstract.
Also, I find myself finding errors after I post. Is there some way to edit after posting?
Moderator Response:[BL] No.There is no editing capability for regular users. Moderators can correct serious errors on request.
-
Jim Hunt at 22:34 PM on 6 February 2023The escalator rises again
Thank you for your kind words Eclectic.
My prediction proved to be reasonably accurate. The actual breathless headline from the WUWT abyss proved to be "The New Pause lengthens again: 101 months and counting …"
Meanwhile a new(ish) open access paper in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences asserts that there has been "Another Year of Record Heat for the Oceans"
"According to IAP/CAS data, the 0–2000 m OHC in 2022 exceeded that of 2021 by 10.9 ± 8.3 ZJ (1 Zetta Joules = 1021 Joules); and according to NCEI/NOAA data, by 9.1 ± 8.7 ZJ...
The salinity-contrast index, a quantification of the “salty gets saltier—fresh gets fresher” pattern, also reached its highest level on record in 2022, implying continued amplification of the global hydrological cycle." -
EddieEvans at 22:10 PM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
"But that does not mean it is pointless to try to get more people to care to learn about the changes, especially the systemic ones, required to limit the harm done and develop sustainable improvements for humanity."
Corruption will be the drag on needed changes beneficial to current and following generations. I see execution as the price of getting caught cheating the State, not the ruling elites. At least not where the two depart in sharing power.
We're dealing with anti-science by powerful people and corporations. That's the first part. The second part becomes insidious and more powerful by magnitudes, by stealth. We know about politicians and lobbyists, corporate deception and denial, and revolving doors. More than any other form of corruption, though, I see intergenerational corruption as the most damaging to life on earth.
"Presumably, some social, political, and economic elites will try to capture the framing of climate policy in various fora at the expense of the less well-funded and well-connected. Similarly, we might see fairly overt intergenerational corruption: the twisting of climate policy to fit the perceived interests of the current generation at the expense of the future."
Gardiner, Stephen M.. A Perfect Moral Storm (Environmental Ethics and Science Policy Series) (p. 305). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 13:54 PM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
nigelj (and others interested in better understanding the report that is discussed in the Story of the Week),
I recommend reading the Report. It is in English. And what I have read so far has not been difficult to read. Mind you it is a report on a topic I am passionate about. It is about promoting the need for climate action (mitigation and adaptation) to be done in ways that help achieve the SDGs (some climate actions are actually detrimental to achieving the SGDs).
The link to the Report is at the end of the article. If you are not interested in reading the full report (164 pages) you can still get a good understanding by reading the Key Findings, Introduction, 'Boxes', and the opening parts of each section. There may also be bits that catch your attention if you skim the rest of the report.
-
John Hartz at 12:32 PM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
@ nigelj #5:
I suspect we are reading an English translation of what was originally written in German by Ute Kreis. Perhaps Baerbel Winkler can chime in?
-
nigelj at 08:41 AM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
The article by Ute Kreis is very vague and wordy to me, and appears to be saying that we can't keep warming under 1.5 degrees because we are going too slow with mitigation due to social factors we can't change (?). If that's correct, why couldn't they just say so? Whether they are right is another issue. I like to always be a little bit positive and think there's at least a possibility we could speed up, but the psychological, political, social and financial road blocks in the way are indeed huge.
Thanks John Hartz for your many good articles and views over the years. My criticism isn't directed at you.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 08:35 AM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
The following conclusion is missing an important point.
“In order to be equipped for a warmer world, we have to anticipate changes, get the affected parties on board, and take advantage of local knowledge. Instead of just reacting, we need to begin an active transformation here and now.”
Adaptations will only be 'reasonably sustainable' if there is confidence that any impact overshoot of 1.5 C will still be significantly less than 2.0 C and will be rapidly drawn back down below 1.5 C.
Without reasonable certainty about the magnitude of the peak climate impact level it will be very hard to develop 'required adaptations' that will be sustainable, especially if the peak impact level will exceed 2.0 C.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:29 AM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
I share Eddie and John's persistent desire to increase awareness and improve understanding of the socioeconomic-political changes required to limit harm done and develop a better future for humanity.
Limiting the harm of climate change impacts is only part, but a significant part, of the required effort to achieve the development of sustainable improvements.
Less climate change impact makes it easier to achieve, and improve on, the Sustainable Development Goals. That highlights the important point that needs to be repeatedly made: Any overshoot of 1.5 C level of impacts needs to be reversed by unprofitable technological actions that rapidly undo the CO2 overshoot. And those unprofitable harmless actions need to be started Now and be paid for by all of the wealthiest humans today (they can figure out how to distribute the penalty among themselves).
Getting that repair of harm done is understandably even harder to achieve than 'limiting the magnitude of harm done'. But that does not mean it is pointless to try to get more people to care to learn about the changes, especially the systemic ones, required to limit harm done and develop sustainable improvements for humanity.
-
John Hartz at 00:19 AM on 6 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
@ EddieEvans #1:
God willing, I will become an octogenarian in July of this year, I am still carrying a baton and will continue to do so until the Grim Reaper pries it from my hand. I have six grandkids — all under the age of fifteen. I do what I do for them.
-
EddieEvans at 21:27 PM on 5 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #5
1.5-degree Goal not plausible
Social change more important than physical tipping pointsOn the new climate change, my wife says I "sound like a broken record" on a failed paradigm, but I won't give it up. Saving one-time life forms on earth will require humanity to get serious and change the dominant social, political, and economic paradigm. I think that Stephen Gardner's A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change explains the origins of the crisis, and it starts at home.
Parts per million atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise, and technological remedies have the headlines.
IMHO, ignoring the systemic growth ideology's deception, denial, and delay only perpetuates the earth's global warming. Now, baby boomers step aside as each generation must. I'm watching a clear, intentional handoff of the same ideology and rising GHGs to following generations, as they, in turn, will hand off GHGs to those following them.
It starts at home.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 07:01 AM on 4 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
The points made by Bob Loblaw @21 can be described in general using the understanding that I try to present (and I am still learning/developing).
Achieving a good result requires collaboration, even in competitions for status (competition is brilliant ... or not). That requires collaborative ‘agreed’ governing of actions of the involved/competing parties to limit the harm and risk of harm. One ‘competitor’ pursuing benefit in a more harmful or riskier way can spoil things for everyone.
The starting point is understanding the importance of having the actions of all individuals governed/limited by the pursuit of learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. Governing of individuals that way is important for any group to develop sustainable improvements, including business and political organizations. And that understanding naturally leads to appreciating the importance of interacting groups being governed to not harm others and ideally help others, including business and political organizations. And that naturally leads to understanding the importance of ‘that type of governing’ being applied to all of current day human activity, including not harming future generations of humanity.
Any collaborative effort could be seen as a ‘monopoly or oligarchy’. But that does not make it a harmful unsustainable development. The understanding is that everything needs to be governed by the pursuit of awareness and understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful. There are a diversity of ways for that type of governing to happen. And each governing system can be harmfully compromised by the potential for ‘people or groups of people to be tempted to try to benefit from being more harmful and less helpful’.
Harmful misleading competitors pursuing perceptions of status can harmfully compromise any political or business system/collaboration. Ensuring that participants pursuing benefit are not harmful is very challenging.
Back to electricity generation and distribution collective collaborations:
Harmful ‘disruptions’ need to be restricted/corrected. New developments, or change, are not always helpful harm reduction. But, established participants, especially large powerful ones, need to be unable to impede ‘helpful harm reducing disruption’. And, to be sustainable, the collective needs to pursue reduced harmfulness even if the ‘improvements’ would be more expensive, less profitable, or less popular.
-
Bob Loblaw at 12:21 PM on 3 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Considering electrical generation to be a natural monopoly may depend on scale. New Zealand, as a pair of islands (albeit large ones) represents a pretty closed system for electrical power. I imagine that makes it much easier to think of it as a single system.
Contrast that with North America, which has a huge grid covering many states and provinces - but limits on how far electrical power can and will be transported to other jurisdictions. California wlil not be getting power from Quebec (eastern Canada), but Quebec does sell power eastern Canadian provinces and several NE US states. There are many companies that provide local transport and distribution, but there are many players in the large-scale generation scenario.
Locally and within small regions, a "natural monopoly" may be a reasonable argument, but the game changes when it comes to large amounts of power covering huge areas.
The inter-connectedness of these many sub-grids was exemplified in 2003, when one operator went unstable and took out large areas of the US and Canada. Some areas were without power for several weeks.
The management of these connected grids requires extensive cooperation. It's hard to imagine it working without some regulation by government.
Although there may be many players in the generation game at the large scale, incorporating many players at the small scale (a home with solar panels, a town with a wind generator, etc.) is much more complicated. To balance load, the grid must be managed so that large generation capacity blends with many small ones that can be much more variable. That would seem to be a lot easier when all that is in control of a single "natural monopoly", rather than a bunch of companies fighting over who gets a slice of the pie.
-
michael sweet at 09:51 AM on 3 February 2023Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
The current price estimate for NuScale power (the first modular reactor to propose building a plant) has been increased to $89/MWH. That includes $4 billion in subsidies from the government and $30 per MWh from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Typical utility scale solar installations currently cost about $24 per MWH in the USA although that also includes some subsidies from the IRA. Perhaps the next proposed modular reactor will be able to reduce the price so that they are only a factor of two greater than solar power.
For those new to the nuclear argument, NuScale said in 2008 that they would have operating reactors by 2020. I doubt that the NuScale reactors will be built.
Nuclear is too expensive, takes too long to build and there is not enough uranium.
-
nigelj at 07:51 AM on 3 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Scaddenp and Bob
I will clarify. I was suggesting that both electricity generation and lines networks are natural monopolies. Generally my understanding is that cities globally have in the past been supplied typically by one local generating company (private or government owned) so this is effectively a natural monoply. Not many places had competing generating companies until this has been deliberately forced on them by governments, and therefore this is somewhat contrived. However maybe this is wrong. I'm basing my account on material I have read somewhere now forgotten.
I'm also just a bit sceptical of the entire competing electricity market idea. In New Zealand the entire generation and lines system was once governmnet owned and run. It was broken up into about 5 generating companies and turned into a competing market, but the outcome seems a bit underwhelming to me. Prices of electricity started climbing after years of being quite stable, and the system has failed to provide enough generation to comfortably work in dry years, and theres constant criticism of the system in the media. However its probably too late to go back to a state owned centralised system, and we just have to make the market work as well as possible.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 07:10 AM on 3 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Hi Everyone,
I want to clarify that in my comment @10 I raised the point about deregulation in response to peppers’ implication that California has higher cost electricity because of Government pursuit of renewable electricity generation and that the pursuit of less harmful energy systems caused other harmful results.
I also wish to clarify how my comment @12, though made regarding deregulation, directly relates to the points in the OP. The government actions, and what people do to take advantage of them, should be evaluated on the basis of ‘reducing harm done and assisting those who need assistance to live decent basic lives’.
A very helpful, likely the best currently developed, perspective for evaluating government actions (or business actions ... or any actions) is the Sustainable Development perspective. More sustainable developments are understandably less harmful than a lot of what has been developed. And the required actions include the replacement of harmful developed activities with less harmful alternatives even if the less harmful alternative is more expensive. Developing sustainable improvements may also require shutting down harmful activity even if a less harmful replacement is not developed. However, sustainable developments must also assist people who are living less than decent basic lives sustainably improve their lives.
For-profit and government leadership actions are only motivated to pursue sustainable development if it is more popular or more profitable than the more harmful alternatives. If everyone rigorously and competently ‘pursued increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful to others who need assistance’, then for-profit and government would be strongly motivated to develop sustainable improvements. However, the freedom to ‘promote positive perceptions, including misunderstandings, that result in reduced awareness and delayed understanding of what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful’ makes it challenging to motivate leadership (in business and government) to aggressively pursue reduction of harm and effective assistance for those who need assistance.
So, in a system that allows the freedom to promote and prolong harmful developed beliefs and actions, the best hope for effectively limiting harm done is government action that promotes increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful. Getting that government action to happen is hard to do when harmful development is regionally popular or profitable. The grand-fathering of harmful fossil fuel extraction operations in California, not requiring already built operations to be significantly less harmful because that would result in the operations stopping (including the stopping of employment and government revenue), is an example of harmful government resistance to reducing harm done.
That type of harmful, less helpful, government/business action is the result of voters/consumers who are willing to be, or are interested in being:
- less aware of the harm done, or believing that no harm is being done
- convinced that they are not being harmed by the harmful action, and convinced that they are harmed by actions that would reduce the harm done
- tempted to believe that the ‘positives that they have been convinced of justify the limited understanding they have of the harm done’
- motivated by other interests making them less concerned, less aware, or resist learning about the developed harm being done
All that said, I believe the most helpful and sustainable actions are the ones that result in reduced energy consumption, as long as the associated material consumption is also as harmless as possible. The health harm of vapours from spray-foam insulation, and the higher flammability of 'cheaper quicker options', comes to mind.
-
Bob Loblaw at 00:38 AM on 3 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
nigel:
Yes, there is an important distinction between electricity production, and what the industry calls "transmission and delivery" (or "T&D").
T&D is clearly a system that is a natural monopoly. Having 20 different companies all stringing cables across the land in an attempt to sell you power would be highly inefficient. Production/generation is more flexible.
Generation, on the other hand, is very difficult to control in the context of "my customer needs power now, I will produce it and put it into the system now". It's not as though the electrons I am putting into the grid at the moment are labelled, and the same ones that are delivered to the customer that bought power from me.
So, the "free market" generation needs to follow rules and pricing variations in a controlled fashion. And the T&D system still needs to be regulated in a fashion that is fair to all.
As an electricity seller, I would obviously prefer to have my sunk capital costs spread over as much revenue-generating sales as possible, so if I can rig the rules to my advantage at the expense of my competitors, so much the better. The last thing I want is to spend money on generating capacity that sits idle most of the time.
In a "free market" that is dominated by a few large producers that have the ear of the regulators, it can be very difficult for small producers to effectively compete in the market. Hence the number of states in the U.S. that have been enacting legislation to make life difficult for small renewable power operations. The politicians are pushed by the established companies/lobbyists (usually fossil-fuel driven) who want to preserve their position.
Which goes to say that the system needs rules and regulations, and that means the government needs to be involved. And that means government involvement in trying to influence the demand side of the power/electricity equation, too.
In Canada, traditional electricity systems used to be regulated monopolies - at least within one province or major region. Some were (and still are) state-owned, while others have seen much more privatization (even the T&D side). Prices still follow a lot of regulation. We haven't gone as deeply into deregulation as some countries, but the pressures are there.
-
Eclectic at 22:34 PM on 2 February 2023The escalator rises again
Jim Hunt,
begorrah and to be sure, your appearance in the comments columns of Deniosphere blogs is always a welcome find. But, as you say, it can be an uphill battle to appear at all.
At WUWT, I was thinking of Nick Stokes and a small stalwart band of scientifically-minded commenters (largely pseudonymous) who provide most of the justification for any sane person to read that blog. Without them, WUWT would be little better than a tiresome repetitious display of anger, un-science, wingtardism, conspiracism, and childish sour-grapes. [Have I omitted anything there?]
Still, WUWT provides a useful exhibit of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Interesting & educational, for readers who wish to gaze into the Abysses which the human mind is capable of achieving.
-
Jim Hunt at 21:17 PM on 2 February 2023The escalator rises again
I feel sure that I count as a "scientifically-minded commenter", which is no doubt why Mr. Watts "banned" me from commenting on his eponymous blog many years ago.
We did offer Mr. Monckton the opportunity to reply publicly to the points raised by Bill The Frog’s culinary themed article, but for some reason he declined. As you point out he will no doubt shortly be proclaiming that there's been "101 months with no warming at all!". -
Eclectic at 15:23 PM on 2 February 2023The escalator rises again
Mr Monckton is still at it. As it is the start of the new month, we will find (within a few days) a Monckton article on WattsUpWithThat blog proclaiming that there has been No Warming for X years & Y months.
X = 8 years or thereabouts. Year after year, the figure remains roughly the same. The figure X is arrived at by a methodology which is a blend of abstruse & absurd. And despite the step-like escalation of surface temperature [well, actually the UAH air temperature series is used . . . which is appropriate for the level near Everest's peak]. Somehow, each pause of the escalation is seen (by Monckton & acolytes) as being conclusive proof that AGW has permanently halted, and that the climate scientists are all wrong.
I confess I enjoy reading the the Monckton article each month ~ there is typically a surge of 200 - 300 comments underneath . . . where the Usual Suspects (the acolytes, plus occasional awefully astute comments by the Great Man himself) manage to rehash much of their creed. They also get to express outrage against the few scientifically-minded commenters who enjoy pointing out the deficiencies of the whole exercise.
-
scaddenp at 11:05 AM on 2 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
nigelj - I consulted into the sector (mostly on thermal efficiency) quite a bit over time of transition until a few years ago. My perception is that market had issues to begin with but it has improved in fits and starts. It did let non-government players into the market so you have more than just the competing SOEs at play. Small operators wanting to build a wind farm or solar farm have near equal access. Distribution of electricity is clearly a natural monopoly but I dont think generation is.
-
nigelj at 06:15 AM on 2 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Bob Loblow and others. New Zealand has an electricity market driven by a system of spot prices, and about 5 private sector competing generating companies and a state owned lines company.
For decades the provision of electricity was essentially a monopoly, and in the 1990s it was broken up into several generating companies in a competing market governed by complicated rules. This appeared to be driven by a neo liberal ideology that business competition is always best
I'm in favour of competition as a general rule with most products and services, but the provision of electricity looks to me like a "natural monopoly" and the attempts to break this up and create a market seems contrived and quite problematic in practice. Do you (and others) agree?
-
Bob Loblaw at 05:26 AM on 2 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
This topic is starting to go over old ground and run off-topic a bit, but I wanted to follow up on OPOF's deregulation tangent.
The argument for deregulation is usually "competition will bring prices down". That has not worked well in the presence of oligopolies - particularly when the different companies work together to maximize their profits.
Deregulation sometimes created rules on how prices were determined - when supply was low, prices went up (and high supply would supposedly lead to low prices). It wasn't truly a "free market" - it was a rules-based calculation of the rates that companies could charge, that could respond to "market conditions" on a minutely or hourly basis.
The catch was that companies would sometimes collude, so that A would shut a plant down "for emergency maintenance" on Thursday, if B agreed to do the same with their power plant the following Tuesday. Each shutdown would drive spot prices up, so that B made gobs of money on Thursday, and A got their turn next Tuesday. Both made much more profit via the gamesmanship. (Guess who got hosed.)
Enron made a lot more money as an energy broker/trader than they did as a producer of anything - until they got caught in their accounting scandals. (The Enron page I linked to also talks about California's electricity deregulation.)
And when Texas saw major distruptions in electricity production in 2021, some consumers saw extreme costs as the rules of "free market pricing" drove the cost of electricity sky high.
-
Bob Loblaw at 05:03 AM on 2 February 2023The escalator rises again
That's a good read, Jim. It's always time-consuming to show the errors in what appear to be simple results by people of the ilk of Monckton.
As for predictions of when they'll come up with a "new" claim of "no warming since..."? We've had a few years of La Nina and we're due for a warm El Nino year, so I'm going to guess we'll see if coming soon.
I've posted the following graphic in the past, and I just checked the timing of the original. I created it in July 2016. By then it was obvious that 2016 was going to be a warm year. By then it was obvious that a warm year like 2016 was going to give start to a whole new "no warming since..." meme.
So, my prediction is that the next one will probably be "no warming since 2023..." or "no warming since 2024..." We know that the false skeptic's material will be updated by a simple search/replace like this one.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 01:51 AM on 2 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
peppers,
When you investigate 'deregulation' keep the following understanding regarding for-profit in mind.
The objective of for-profit is maximiaing profit. It's objective is not:
- minimizing harm done
- maintaining and increasing the quality of servces and products
- maintaining and improving the conditions experienced by workers
- developing sustainable activity
And note that a 'business-minded' government, like the ones often elected in regions like California, can have similar objectives of maximizing the profit of for-profit activity which compromes their leadership actions to be more harmful and be less helpful to those needing assistance ... because that is popular, and popularity wins elections.
And an important point is understanding the ways that misleading marketing 'promoting positive perceptions like the greatness of for-profit' impedes learning about what is harmful and delays the development of popularity for being less harmful and more helpful to others.
-
Jim Hunt at 19:40 PM on 1 February 2023The escalator rises again
Should you wish to predict the next time the "repetitious claim" will be reheated here is a 2016 preprint detailing a comprehensive mathematical model of "skeptical" behaviour:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/03/how-to-make-a-complete-rss-of-yourself/
"If Mr Monckton’s sausages leave an awfully bad taste in the mouth, it could be due to the fact that they are full of tripe."
Not to mention the obligatory quotation from Richard Feynman:
"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -
nigelj at 08:18 AM on 1 February 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Minerals dissolved in sea water:
Note particulary the concentrations of uranium compared to lithium.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:02 AM on 1 February 2023How climate change spurs megadroughts
Here is an update on the NPR reporting about the Colorado River Basin water problem I linked to @15.
KUNC report: "Federal pressure mounts as states attempt to break Colorado River standoff"
The States involved have not been able to agree to solve the problem. And it is implied in the reporting that some State leadership may be happier if they are able to 'blame the Feds for imposing restrictions'.
The full series of reports are available at the following link.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 03:50 AM on 1 February 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #4
Here is some newer news that raises a very important point regarding the ‘objectives of human actions today’. It is reporting 'new research', but relates to my comment @1.
NPR News Item “AI is predicting the world is likely to hit a key warming threshold in 10-12 years”
The important point is the unfortunate, and incorrect, ways that the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 C and 2.0 C are discussed.
The common sense needs to be that it is harmfully incorrect to refer to the 1.5 C target as ‘potentially, or actually, dead’. That incorrect way of thinking about the targets would be likely to also make 2.0 C ‘dead’.
The required understanding is that, ideally, human action would keep global warming impacts below 1.5 C. If the powerful among the current generation is unwilling to make that happen, if the leadership actions taken indicate that 1.5 C will be exceeded, then the portion of the population most responsible for making the problem worse has to be required to pay today to start removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. And that ‘non-profitable action’ needs to be done with the least harmful of the currently developed technologies for doing that, not the least expensive. And any improvements that would further reduce the harm of those ‘removal operations already started’ would need to be implemented as modifications of existing operations, not just be part of new items built. And continued inaction to limit the harm done would trigger a larger 'penalty to do more 'now' to remove CO2.
The science has long been clear that limiting harm done requires human global warming impacts to be brought back below 1.5 C. That will require unprofitable actions that need to be as harmless as possible. It is almost certain that the only way that will happen, and most effectively happen, is if the most harmful portion of the current population, those who benefited most from the developed problem and those who are currently benefiting most from continuing to make the problem worse, will not give up their harmful desires ‘they have to pay now, and be required to fix the problem as harmlessly as possible’. That penalty mechanism is likely the only way to keep human impacts below 2.0 C and minimize the magnitude and duration of an overshoot of impact above 1.5 C without having 'the solutions be new unnecessarily harmful developments'.
-
peppers at 11:33 AM on 31 January 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
HI Forever,
Ill have to study up on the deregulation someone, maybe you, mentioned that before. Apparently it is a factor Im not familiar with.
Nigelj, I did not know about the lithium in the sea. That intriques me.
Thx tons, D
-
nigelj at 06:04 AM on 31 January 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Peppers @9, while there are several hundred billion tons of uranium dissolved in sea water attempts to extract it have not been encouraging. It doesnt look like it will ever be economic.
There are trillions of tons of lithium dissolved in sea water and this has been extracted experimentally with quite good success. Its more costly than conventional lithium mining, but not prohibitely so and will probably be a good viable future source of lithium. Some geothermal bores are also rich in lithium and the potential quantities are enormous. This sort of thing is all easily googled so I'm not going to spend time posting links.
If we look back historically before the climate issue, the world has had a mixture of types of electricity generation, and many individual countries have had a mix of generation. New Zealand has had a mixture of hydro power, geothermal power, and coal fired plant. Since the warming problem we have closed most coal fired plants added gas fired plant and added wind power and a little bit of solar power. My point is while theres a tendency to want one singular power source thats perfect, it probably doesn't exist, and the future will also be a mixture of things including some limited nuclear power.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 01:17 AM on 31 January 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
peppers @9,
Regarding "... why does California apply doubling electricity costs to cover State programs of exploring and implimenting alternative sources ..." including the context you present it in.
A major part of the higher California electricity cost appears to be the result of 'deregulation (shift to for-profit competition)'. That has been observed to result in higher costs in every state that deregulated their electricity supply. The higher cost is not the result of the chosen method of electricity generation. It is due to the way the 'competition system operates to maximize profit for the major electricity generators'.
Also, the lower cost way of operating the system created situations that, under extreme wind conditions, caused failures that sparked wild fires because the very dry vegetation was not far enough away from broken power-lines. So the new operating procedure is to cut back power transmission when strong winds will blow in areas with dry vegetation. It is impractical to keep vegetation far away from where broken transmission lines may reach.
But a part of the California electricity cost is covering the legal penalty for the wild fires caused by the for-profit competitive electrical system operation that was the result of the government decision to deregulate.
The government of California is not 'applying a doubling of cost'. The real costs of deregulation are emerging.
Regarding "They are not encouraging the healthiest sources of power at all, ..."
That appears to be a misunderstanding resulting from the perspective of 'cheaper is better'. When all the harmful impacts of the energy alternatives are thoroughly considered all of the fossil fuel options are very harmful compared to solar or wind or hydro. Note that harmfulness is not restricted to 'human health impacts' and it also includes 'risks of harm, not just immediately identifiable harms to people'.
A more important concern regarding the specific situation of lower income people being unable to afford the basic needs of a decent life is "Why does the socioeconomic-political system fail to ensure that everybody is able to live at least a basic decent life?" GDP has risen faster than population (globally, and in almost every region) and yet extreme poverty remains to different degrees in almost every region (the Social Democracies of Europe and some small island nations appear to be the possible exceptions). What is wrong with the developed socioeconomic-political systems? The problem is likely the popularity of the 'positives of potential personal benefit' keeping people from learning about what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. A lot of what has developed is harmful and unsustainable. The required changes of understanding and behaviour will shatter many 'powerful positive perceptions'.
-
peppers at 21:41 PM on 30 January 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Thanks for all the input. Ill go over all of this in time.
Micheal, California's 44M have 2.5 times the rate for electricity than Washington States 8M. Nothing amusing there.
Forever, with the sentiment that unhealthy fuels should carry higher costs to diminish theri use, why does California apply doubling electricity costs to cover State programs of exploring and implimenting alternative sources, among covering other programs of wildfires and subsidies to the poor? Of which these policies increase their poor. They are not encouraging the healthiest sources of power at all, and it is punitive in nature to the common working citizen, such as my renters.
I was too general on the nuclear. There is enough uranium in the sea for thousands of years, but it is impractical in many ways to imagine the increased accidents and security needed for thousands more reactors. maybe not all power, but a small reactor outside each city, like so many nuclear subs. They are claming huge strides in safety and reuse of all waste, etc.
Nigelj, no we should not bury our heads in the sand. Something must be done. But in lieu of finding a real actionable solution, punishing the populous to hope to reduce global emissions 7% (if we achieve cutting our use in half) from the US is a bit doomy. As another said, if we settle on that we do not pursue more strongly an actual working solution. For now we need a backup when night comes, or the wind dies or snowpack is slow that year. We can work to lower needing fossil fuel to 1/3 of the time is the hieght of these goals. They are not worth doing as I see it, just to do something.
And 7% is the amount of new consumers added to the world every year, as we passed 8B on November 22,2022, and will find 9B in 2037. Thats one a and a half times the California population added each year, spread across and increasing the energy use in every global area and zone. The US will add California's population again within 35 years.
My 3 year old's day school is packed and Im not going to consider that this is the problem. This is what many of these solutions are based in, that the peoples behaviors are the problem. They should suffer. I am not fatalistic; im interested in the pie in the sky, or the 'pennecillin' solution to be found that will address this. Its actually, in my opinion, the only way. I do not have a moments thought it will not be found.
I have also told I have been a landlord for decades and how do I have a 3 year old! Yes Ill be throwing him a ball at 18 from my walker!
Thanks all. Best D
-
One Planet Only Forever at 12:45 PM on 30 January 2023Checklist: How to take advantage of brand-new clean energy tax credits
Hi peppers,
In addition to the responses by nigelj and michael sweet, I would add that it is very common for people to believe that 'cheaper is better'. As an engineer I understand the importance of doing something as inexpensively as possible. But as an engineer I would also always limit the alternatives being considered to 'very safe options' for good reason. And as an engineer I have repaired many built items, or limited their use, or taken them out of service because it became known that they were not as safe as they should be.
A major problem today is the prevalence of the belief that marketplace competition naturally develops safe results and would promptly remove or correct harmful developments. The opposite is actually closer to the truth because 'more harmful is usually cheaper and easier'. And 'the positive of more profitable' makes it less likely that developed items will be corrected to be less harmful by the marketplace.
Without external governing to limit harm done (requiring things to be more expensive) the marketplace will 'naturally' produce more harmful results in both senses of 'more'. Developed items will 'naturally' be more harmful (as harmful as can be gotten away with for as long as possible). And if/when developments are deemed to be too harmful, the replacements are likely to just be 'more' harmful options.
That brings up the type of 'belief' you are concerned about. The alternatives implemented being 'more harmful'. Things can indeed be very harmful if the potential harm is not well investigated before the new way 'replaces' the option that is deemed to be 'too harmful'. But that means that using natural gas should have been much more expensive long ago. And it also means that nuclear generation should have been more expensive, and hydro power. Even solar and wind power should be more expensive to address the potential harmful impacts.
The bottom line is that 'reduced energy consumption' is the required correction. And the power generated for 'essential energy consumption' needs to be 'as harmless as possible', not 'the cheaper way'.
The promotion of, and focus on, the positives, like lower cost, can result in reduced investigation and consideration of the potential negatives. Even if negatives are known, the developed desire for the positives can cause people to ignore, dismiss or excuse the negatives. That 'desire for the promoted positives' can make people disagree with, distrust or dislike anyone trying to help others learn about the harm being done.
