2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?

It is January 2, 2016.I seem to remember that the 2014 data came in by the time of the State of the Union Speech. But the argument that there was "no warming in 16 years" that we heard for all of 2014 shopped finally.Side issue:Now if only we could get the environmental movement to point out that solar panels REDUCE the price of fossil fuels by reducing demand. The environmental movement is so obsessed with increasing the price of non-renewables that they can't seem to dig themselves out of the cul-de-sac they dug themselves into. It has hurt the cause badly. I would bet that a government funded $200 billion per year program (over say 10 years which would be $2 trillion)- which puts solar panels on every roof (for "free"), would pay for itself in short time. How could at-the-pump gas prices not drop when that would eliminate the need to build gas-fired power plants (or any power plants) and thus increase the supply (against the demand)?A resident in North Carolina just paid $7500 to rent solar panels for 20 years, and the energy cost's dropped from $1,800 down to $800 per year ("net metering" was responsible for much of that $1000 yearly savings however).It seems that costs drop right away and pay for themselves in 8 years (when renting)?However, Al Gore, said that utility companies don't like solar panels because it cuts into their profits (they want more projects to build new plants), so they actually raise prices on existing consumers to make up for the loss in profit. He said it reflected something like the "public interest against the special interest".Here is the problem.Consumers refuse to spend a few more $ upfront on LEDs (over incandescent bulbs) even though the savings will come in months if not weeks. (8 hours per day use of LEDs saves around $100 a year verses incandescent bulbs). They will never pay for solar panels (with all the trouble and upfront costs). The government must take the initiative and it's the fault of the environmental movement for not making a big government investment the chief issue. And the environmental movement seems all about punishing poor Americans with endless measures to jack up existing prices of energy (though utility companies might be responsible for some of this, re: Al Gore Rolling Stone interview) and then subsidizing richer Americans in purchasing panels.I blame the environmental movement for the problems in implementing a green future. We know there are special interests for the fossil fuel industry (duh!), but the environmental movement has played right into their hands.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

But the important things are that:all the upfront costs will be covered in less than a yearthe upfront costs are smallthe "installation" is as simple as breathingthe savings will be in the hundreds of $$$ over several years
..........Yet, people still don't buy them because of the slightly higher upfront costs. It should give an idea of what we are dealing with when one looks at the solar panel issue (and panels have not even reached the 20 year "price parity" yet, at least not nationally).AlsoThe environmental movement has failed miserably in explaining all the macro-economic benefits.EDIT: one macro-economic benefit could be that a $200 billion per year investment in solar panels (for free) on rooftops could send gas prices (at the pump) down by about that much. The speculators would give up on hoarding gas and parking it offshore when they know there will be abundant energy (and renewable)available every year in the future. No more 30 cents per gallon added cost simply due to speculation. That is in addition to the savings from reduced demand for the fossil fuels (just a slight increase in demand can shoot prices up over a $1 per gallon which would be a savings of perhaps $125 billion per year for American consumers).Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

And, that means that the energy you are no longer sucking from the grid is available for others (so reduced demand).It should, in theory, reduce prices for others. But Al Gore said in the Rolling Stone interview that your panels actually increase prices on the grid because the utility companies will want to make up for the lost profits.So, not only will (most)people not pay the upfront costs (that you did), but the utility companies make the issue all the more complicated.The standard thinking among environmentalists is that the "utility death spiral" (as Gore called it) of higher rates for consumers on the grid combined with cheaper solar panel prices will lean to a greener future (albeit much further down the road as it is a long, winding, slow path ahead).The thinking assumes that there won't be a political backlash during the long, slow transition. I think the higher energy prices could cause a wave election (eventually) which will sweep in those who want to remove all regulations on power plants (to reduce prices somewhat). A wave could come if gas prices at the pump increase and that frustration combines with those who feel the crunch paying the utility companies. (remember, it isn't even guaranteed that regulations set to kick in next decade banning inefficient light-bulbs wont be trashed with a new administration - despite all the forward progress)

Page not found – Rolling Stone

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The chief battleground in this war between the energy systems of the past and future is our electrical grid. For more than a century, the grid — along with the regulatory and legal framework governing it — has been dominated by electric utilities and their centralized, fossil-fuel-powered electricity-generation plants. But the rise of distributed alternate energy sources allows consumers to participate in the production of electricity through a policy called net metering. In 43 states, homeowners who install solar PV to systems on their rooftops are permitted to sell electricity back into the grid when they generate more than they need.

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These policies have been crucial to the growth of solar power. But net metering represents an existential threat to the future of electric utilities, the so-called utility death spiral: As more consumers install solar panels on their roofs, utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues. Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on.

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But here is more good news: The Koch brothers are losing rather badly. In Kansas, their home state, a poll by North Star Opinion Research reported that 91 percent of registered voters support solar and wind. Three-quarters supported stronger policy encouragement of renewable energy, even if such policies raised their electricity bills.

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In Georgia, the Atlanta Tea Party joined forces with the Sierra Club to form a new organization called — wait for it — the Green Tea Coalition, which promptly defeated a Koch-funded scheme to tax rooftop solar panels.

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Meanwhile, in Arizona, after the state's largest utility, an ALEC member, asked the public-utility commission for a tax of up to $150 per month for solar households, the opposition was fierce and well-organized. A compromise was worked out — those households would be charged just $5 per month — but Barry Goldwater Jr., the leader of a newly formed organization called TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar won't be Killed), is fighting a new attempt to discourage rooftop solar in Arizona. Characteristically, the Koch brothers and their allies have been using secretive and deceptive funding in Arizona to run television advertisements attacking "greedy" owners of rooftop solar panels — but their effort has thus far backfired, as local journalists have exposed the funding scam.

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Even though the Koch-funded forces recently scored a partial (and almost certainly temporary) victory in Ohio, where the legislature voted to put a hold on the state's renewable-portfolio standard and study the issue for two years, it's clear that the attack on solar energy is too little, too late. Last year, the Edison Electric Institute warned the utility industry that it had waited too long to respond to the sharp cost declines and growing popularity of solar: "At the point when utility investors become focused on these new risks and start to witness significant customer- and earnings-erosion trends, they will respond to these challenges. But, by then, it may be too late to repair the utility business model."

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The most seductive argument deployed by the Koch brothers and their allies is that those who use rooftop solar electricity and benefit from the net-metering policies are "free riders" — that is, they are allegedly not paying their share of the maintenance costs for the infrastructure of the old utility model, including the grid itself. This deceptive message, especially when coupled with campaign contributions, has persuaded some legislators to support the proposed new taxes on solar panels.

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But the argument ignores two important realities facing the electric utilities: First, most of the excess solar electricity is supplied by owners of solar cells during peak-load hours of the day, when the grid's capacity is most stressed — thereby alleviating the pressure to add expensive new coal- or gas-fired generating capacity. But here's the rub: What saves money for their customers cuts into the growth of their profits and depresses their stock prices. As is often the case, the real conflict is between the public interest and the special interest.
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Read more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on FacebookRead more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on FacebookRead more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on FacebookRead more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on FacebookRead more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on FacebookEdited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

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So what do you think about that article? Is it accurate? Objective?

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Our media is worthless when it comes to informing Americans of anything consequential, so Al Gore is always educational. He is responding to popular propaganda, so it also provides a much needed balance.That is 2 points in his favor.I still think that global warming (um) educationalists need to offer some real solutions instead of cheering on higher energy prices. The opposition will just point to environmental regulations as the cause for the wallet pinch.I wish we could get around to helping Indians buy solar panels (they don't have expensive electrical wiring and phone poles in most places, so panels are a much cheaper way to get electricity) but we don't even buy them for our citizens.The idea of the government purchasing panels for Americans is a taboo subject despite the fact that it is economical from a pure energy standpoint(before one even considers the environmental benefits and the economics of such).The environmental issues should teach us that we are one world, but we don't even have our act together here in our neck of the nationalist woods.

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A big part of the cost associated with coal is transportation. For plants that are close to the source, I think it is still an economic choice - Wyoming and West Virginia for example. But in most places, natural gas is much less costly to produce and deliver. The other big cost is the technology needed to clean the smoke from coal. However, since many plants are implementing those scrubbing systems, there must still be economic incentive to do so.

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If we deploy enough solar panels worldwide, then the energy produced could relieve the world demand of energy so much that the cheapest to extract oil (essentially Persian gulf oil) could be all we need to supply demand.Gulf oil can "break-even" at slightly less than $1 a gallon. (its a lot cleaner than the tar sludge sands also)The same macro-dynamics applies to coal also. Coal has its cheap easy to remove types and the more expensive variety.So the environmental movement can claim to be attempting to reduce the price of the cherished energy commodities if a really big investment is proposed.

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I believe the higher rates Gore and others are anticipating are due to higher costs to obtain fossil fuels as resources become used up.

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Actually the newer, more dirty sources of petroleum that have been discovered aren't that expensive it seems.The Tar Sands of Alberta can break even at $47 a barrel (or $67 if it is the type obtained by scraping or something).And the Gulf states have been artificially decreasing production, so that has shot prices up a lot (albeit, not this very moment). (ironic that just a few percent less production can shoot prices up over 100%).

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The true cost has not yet been paid.

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Something that is a new discovery is the damage to the life in the oceans. Nobody saw the extinctions coming back in the 1990s.I think it very foolish for the environmental movement to spend so little time shouting all over and on (top of the issue of) the acidification of the oceans.I started a new thread to see if there are deniers on this issue too. (my guess is they will say that "higher carbon follows higher temperatures and since higher temperatures are just a cyclical thing, then we deny man caused it")EDIT then the next question is to find out if all climate-change skeptics hold this view because there are lots of varieties among the "denier" community. One shouldn't broad-brush the "denier" community, and I was just guilty of such in my parenthetical sentence.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

Things are confusing.Saudi Arabia helped limit supply enough over the past decade - driving up prices - that it made investment in alternative energy (like solar) a viable option and a "worthy" enough goal among Americans. But it also made investment in new "unconventional" technology to extract dirty fossil fuels an urgent priority.Now Saudi Arabia is sinking the price of fossil fuels simply by removing most artificial production limits - the very thing that put renewable energy progress on the fast track. The solar panel revolution seems to be lifting off, and prices seem to be headed nowhere but down. It's the dirty unconventional fossil fuels producers that will have a hard time finding innovations to enable their filthy product to match the low current energy prices per barrel.But the newer, environmentally disastrous fossil fuel sources have managed to prove they can be viable at ever lower market prices for a barrel of oil.Environmentalist have 2 alternatives. Tax the dirty fuel sources or put them out of business by doing everything to make cleaner energy cheaper. The first is politically impossible in the USA. (especially by itself)The 2014 New York Gubernatorial race saw a Green candidate Howie Hawkins offer a plan to tax the wealthy (income tax) to fund renewable energy projects so that by 2030, 100% of energy in New York would be "clean" and electricity rates would be cut in half from the present bills the consumer pays. The plan also would have brought unemployment down to 0% because alternative energy costs are actually much to do with job intensive labor. And a Stanford professor peer reviewed the plan (Jacobson was his name I think).Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

The Green party candidate, via a peer-reviewed plan, showed that, by 2030, short term taxes on "the big polluters and wall street" (in the New York ads for the plan) would lead to a 50% cut in energy bills later.The way renewables work is that if the upfront costs are paid for, then prices drop after. Its sort of "free energy" after the initial cost.Imagine the "pro-growth" chants and chorus we would be hearing from (right-wing)talk radio if this was something that would come about from some piece of legislation the fossil fuel industry supported.I am so sick of hearing about that measly "Keystone pipeline" , you don't have a clue. The United States is full of little "know-it-alls" who listen to Rush Limbaugh, and then they seem programed to "think Keystone" anytime you hear about the energy issue. Keystone is the be all and end all issue for energy. The right-wing bought-and-paid-for talk radio echo chamber has seen some real payoff for certain industry at the expense of our economic growth. And the Republicans are claiming to be able to magically grow the economy "4%" or more if their rehashed voodoo can continue yet more. Put them in the white house so they can keep on keeping on I mean "change the direction of the nation". Never mind that they already have the status quo doing everything they brag about.

There is some very fortunate evaporation of warm waters that blow over Germany, which enables the northern-latitude region to have relatively warm weather.The side-effect is the large cloud-cover which really does limit Germany. Some days the country gets nearly 80% of it's energy from renewables. Those days are fairly rare. The United States would be a much quicker (and more powerful) payoff than Germany.Germany, OPEC, and China have done the most to move solar technology forward. Germany was an early investor (when the costs were sky high back around early 2000s) in the technology and that helped create the market. OPEC lowered production over a half-dozen times over several decades, and the tightening this century has been noteworthy. China offered very very big subsidies to its solar producers and that made a monumental difference in making them affordable for anybody engaged in free trade with China.Solar would see further price drops simply by a big United States investment from the federal government ( say $200 billion per year). Producers wouldn't need to charge as much per unit if they sold many times the amount of panels. If 100 times the panels were sold, then the profit margin per panel sold could be about 1/100th. Plus a red hot market would encourage investment in price reducing innovations (not that some of this surely isn't happening already).But the current price of solar is low enough that a big U.S. government investment would not only pay for itself (at the micro-economical level) in less than a decade (or around a decade) but the macro-economical benefits would shine a light of prosperity on not only the U.S. economy but the entire world.Talk about "1000 points of light". The Republicans should make their economic policies match their endless claims.

But, it is impossible to talk about global warming issues without proposing some solutions IMO.Btw the 2015 average price of a gallon of gas was 94 cents less at-the-pump than it was for 2014. A $115 billion savings for American consumers.And it is all due to the supply verses demand match.The macroeconomics of increasing the supply of energy is dramatic. Nothing beats solar. The wonders of solar panels are only matched by the complete ineptitude of the environmental movement. I don't think these environmental groups and their spokespeople understand economics at all. And I'm not talking about political economy, though they are very ignorant of that too.

Enough energy reaches the earth from the sun in 1 hour to supply all our current energy "needs" that we currently use. It should be pointed out the much of the world is still developing, so current "needs" represent an inadequate state of development.Maryland has 10,000 square miles. It would only take a few square miles of solar panels (on top of roofs) to fuel the energy needs of the entre state.Here is the summer 2014 worldwide situation as shown by Al Gore

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The cost of electricity from photovoltaic, or PV, solar cells is now equal to or less than the cost of electricity from other sources powering electric grids in at least 79 countries. By 2020 — as the scale of deployments grows and the costs continue to decline — more than 80 percent of the world's people will live in regions where solar will be competitive with electricity from other sources.

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No matter what the large carbon polluters and their ideological allies say or do, in markets there is a huge difference between "more expensive than" and "cheaper than." Not unlike the difference between 32 degrees and 33 degrees Fahrenheit. It's not just a difference of a degree, it's the difference between a market that's frozen up and one that's liquid. As a result, all over the world, the executives of companies selling electricity generated from the burning of carbon-based fuels (primarily from coal) are openly discussing their growing fears of a "utility death spiral."

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Read more: Page not found – Rolling Stone
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

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So your claim that

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If you're really talking about the supply of energy, lots of things beat solar: coal, oil, hydro, a horse on a treadmill.

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is just a bunch of hot air devoid of reality.

I would like for RAZD to do the best he/she can to show us his/her energy bill for each year before and after his $15,000 investment. It is going to be complicated because he/she said something about needing to change over his/her water from gas to electric, which will enable him/her to use the energy produced by his/her solar panel.We can calculate when he/she will "break even".(And don't forget the macro-economics! The much promoted - via massive self-serving propaganda & buying-up of politicians - fossil fuels are part of an enterprising industry which prefers limits to production to keep energy prices up. RAZD said that his solar panels help to reduce REDUCE REDUCE the bill for his neighbors because solar is part of an industry that wants prices to keep on getting lower - in fact, they always do. The macro-economics leads to current utility bills - presently using fossil-fuel based energy - falling at least in half over time ONLY WHEN REPLACED WITH SOLAR as the Howie Hawkins New York plan shows. Macro-economical argument also looks at the economic growth that we get when energy prices are halfed)Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

I have an October 2015 Consumer Reports which shows how consumers have saved $2,500 per year on more efficient appliances(in 2015 $) since Carter made it a priority in 1977. It was what Al Gore was referring to, early in his long RS piece, as a 50% reduction in total "energy intensity" since 1980. But the same October CR article tells how large utility companies that want to charge a "fixed rate" to consumers, because utilities can't stand that consumers efficiency is eating into profits. The "utility death spiral". I will get around to quoting it in a while (cant be accessed online). There are some related solar-panel issues I will quote as well.Here is a Forbes article on the issue, and it centers around "net metering". It is mostly pro-net meteringNet Energy Metering -- Are We Capitalists Or What?Here is an anti net-metering article
The Hole in the Rooftop Solar-Panel Craze - WSJ(if link doesn't allow you to read text then put "the hole in the rooftop solar panel craze wall street journal" into google .)Here is a quote from the informative article which has a hyper link to a pro-solar academic study

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According to a recent Energy Department-backed study at North Carolina State University, installing a fully financed, average-size rooftop solar system will reduce energy costs for 93% of the single-family households in the 50 largest American cities today. That’s why people have been rushing out to buy rooftop solar panels, particularly in sunny states like Arizona, California and New Mexico.

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The primary reason these small solar systems are cost-effective, however, is that they’re heavily subsidized. Utilities are forced by law to purchase solar power generated from the rooftops of homeowners and businesses at two to three times more than it would cost to buy solar power from large, independently run solar plants. Without subsidies, rooftop solar isn’t close to cost-effective.

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Recent studies by Lazard and others, however, have found that large, utility-scale solar power plants can cost as little as five cents (or six cents without a subsidy) per kilowatt-hour to build and operate in the sunny Southwest. These plants are competitive with similarly sized fossil-fueled power plants. But this efficiency is possible only if solar plants are large and located in sunny parts of the country. On average, utility-scale solar plants nationwide still cost about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, versus around six cents per kilowatt-hour for coal and natural gas, according to the Lazard study.

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Large-scale solar-power prices are falling because the cost to manufacture solar panels has been decreasing and because large solar installations permit economies of scale. Rooftop solar, on the other hand, often involves microinstallations in inefficient places, which makes the overall cost as much as 3 times higher.

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So why are we paying more for the same sun?

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The article has hyper-linksHere is a google link leading to lots of (somewhat negative)WSJ articles on solar. Including that one aboveGoogleThe Stanford professor, Mark Jacobson, is a respected & leading scientist. He recently had a big study showing the economic value in building hundreds of thousands of huge windmills along the gulf coast, because they will reduce a category 3 hurricane down to category 1, and a category 5 down to a category 3. He peer-reviewed the Howie Hawkins energy plan. There is a hyper-link to a Stanford PDF in this link (below). Ill quote the paragraph where the hyper-link is.What's Wrong With Cuomo's Energy Plan? - CounterPunch.org

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Fortunately, there’s the recent peer-reviewed study by a team of Stanford and Cornell scientists, engineers, and economists that demonstrates the technological and economic feasibility of converting to New York State’s all-purpose energy system to 100% carbon-free energy in 17 years (Mark Jacobson et al). This goal and this plan should be the starting point for a state Energy Plan.

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The main thrust of my argument (which will become more clear when I type in the Consumer Reports text) will be that the solar industry seems to prefer lower prices for its product while the other industries consider it a major calamity when prices drop. Solar looks like the future, from a pro-growth economic standpoint.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.