2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?

See Solar (alternative energy) economics, Message 253 of Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!Return on investment between 7% and 10% -- sufficient to make it economical to borrow (at lower interest) to install panels and still be ahead in the near future, way ahead beyond that.All my bulbs are LED and before panel installation I was one of the "more efficient houses" in my neighborhood based on total energy use (gas and electric). My electric bill has been negative since the panel installation.Enjoy

See We have seen the enemy, and it IS us., Message 245 of Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!: And from Message 242 of that thread we have and I have not seen any evidence that this trend did not continue if not get worse.Enjoy

Indeed, I intentionally oversized my installation so that

• I would generate a surplus, thus helping my neighborhood as well as my own use,
• provide for me to increase use of electricity over time and
• allow for long term decay of panel output (5% in 20 years projected)

I can also add to it or supplement it with other solar or wind generation. Wind especially interests me, but I tend towards the vertical axis type best realized with http://artturbine.com/ style pieces of art as well as productive.For instance I also use a single small panel wired to a deep-cycle battery that powers a 12vdc bilge pump in my sump, making the AC pump a backup (and the water powered pump a backup backup -- I live in a flood zone). That would be true if the utilities are run as capitalist corporations, which is not always the case. In my case for instance the local utility just announced a reduction in rates because production costs were down (you're welcome, neighbors). I believe the higher rates Gore and others are anticipating are due to higher costs to obtain fossil fuels as resources become used up.Curiously, I don't anticipate the utilities disappearing because the grid will still balance the flow of electricity, but I do expect it to become more of a web of interconnected sources. This will reduce incidence of blackouts\brownouts and provide better overall protection from storm damage.But then I also expect utilities to become either public owned or non-profit as well. Which is why we need to separate real economics from political (corporatist) economics. Note that the use of coal to generate electricity is down, not because of political regulations, but because it is cheaper and more efficient to use natural gas. Note as well that surveys of actual installations of solar panels is far higher than was expected. Solar farms and wind farms are also ways that corporate utilities are moving to provide electricity without fossil fuels and to reduce their production costs long term.They have to reduce costs to remain competitive as corporations, and as public utilities or non-profits they would have a mandate to provide service at minimum rates.Because everyone can do what I have done.The way things are currently (no pun intended) structured, any electrical company can become your provider and you agree to pay their rates for generation,* much like you can choose any internet provider for (bad) service. This means that a non-profit cooperative company could provide solar panels on your roof, sharing the cost and the power with you, and sharing the grid wire maintenance costs with the other utilities or a sub-utility that specializes in line maintenance.Enjoy* - including a "line fee" to the utility company that owns the lines, and as that company see decreased demand for generation of electricity it would evolve into a utility for maintaining the lines.Edited by RAZD, : ..

So what do you think about that article? Is it accurate? Objective? Let's review this objectively:(1) "utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues." -- this is typical corporatist propaganda with the logical fallacy of appeal to (unfounded) consequences. The use of logical fallacies should raise big red flags in any argument.They also will have reduced costs, so all they "lose" is their unearned profit margin on people that put up solar power. Their appropriate response is any combination of (a) investing in solar and wind farms themselves (see Duke Energy Commits To Largest Solar Farm East Of Mississippi, (b) to charge a user fee to transmit power over the lines and through the transformers they have installed and which they would continue to maintain and (c) enter into cooperative agreements providing solar panels and installation to consumers in exchange for giving them an equitable share of the value of the produced electricity (they become share holders in the coop venture).(2) "Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on." -- consumers are already opting to use solar panels in increasing numbers (a) because they want to help lessen greenhouse gases, (b) it is economical (as I have demonstrated) and (c) costs of production are dropping and efficiency is improving (and will continue to) making them more and more affordable even without government subsidies.Consumers are also worried about the ability of the utility companies to expand production, or even to maintain production, as electrical use increases and population increases, and having an alternate source for backup and to reduce peak demand makes sense. Not surprising at all. One of the things I saw from participation in the Occupy movement was that there was a lot of cross-over with Tea Party positions and utilities are like government and corporations combined, while people have virtually no say in how they operate: disenfranchised people disenchanted by arbitrary power. That gets me back to the user fees. I can sign up with a power company in Arizona and pay them for power they generate plus fees to use the grid to distribute it here to Rhode Island. Companies are already shifting away from coal because of cost. Companies are also investing in solar and wind farms to reduce production costs. Why should I worry about the amount greedy banks\corporations suck out of a necessary system rather than about providing the best overall service at the best price?In other words: boo hoo, the world is changing and you either keep up with it or you become extinct (and that not fast enough for me, imho).The argument that rich people won't be able to make as much money out of something they are not really entitled too is a losing argument in my book, and would incline me to install even MORE solar panels.Enjoy

But many places are installing solar panels as stand-alone systems without need for transmission lines and poles. So they provide subsidies and grants to get them purchased There is no planet B.Enjoy

Indeed, the cost/kw is cheaper to scrub the smoke than to scrub the plant and replace it.We have a plant near us that is slated to go off-line in ~2 years now (originally in 2013), and they just built two giant 500' cooling towers to reduce impact on Narragansett Bay. Rhode Island is pretty flat and these monsters can be seen for miles (and they have affected property values nearby), but at the time it was more economical to keep producing electricity while they were built.What do we do with these when the plant shuts down?(a) paint them like Devil's Tower and have rock climbing on them?(b) install large vertical axis windmills with them as the axis (constant wind up the bay)?(c) demolish them and clean the site (likely contaminated)?Enjoy

... have been known about for decades. They were talked about in the 70's when I was at uni (and a global warming activist then).What was missing was the technology to extract it, and a price that made it economical. ...by ignoring the cost to the environment, especially drinking water acquifers, and the cost to return that envionment to what it was like before.The true cost has not yet been paid.Enjoy

To survive and reproduce, and adapt to the ecology around us ... or adapt it to to suit us.The later option has worked well for some time, but it could be reaching the point where we are no longer able to "terraform" (human-form?) it to our desired ecology\habitat.We do display a large variation in adaptations to different ecologies, so it may be a matter of shifting people from one less habitable ecology to one more habitable. This will of course result in political chaos, as we already see in Syria (unrest started with several years of extreme drought due to climate changes in that area).Enjoy

Curiously I think you both need to provide citations to objectively review this argument: Especially the horse on a treadmill bit ... (a little hyperbole perhaps?)Personally I think LamarkNewAge is right in the long view, and that in the short view the costs are fairly balanced.And I've put my money where my mouth is.Enjoy.

Again, back in the 70's this was discussed with acidification of rain due to use of coal caused widespread tree damage in Canada (I was there at the time) and affecting the rivers, lakes and ocean. It does have far reaching effects on the ecology of the habitats and the species inhabiting them.btw -- I found this recent article on 2015 temps:

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Record-shattering December catapults U.S. to its second warmest year in 2015

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2015 is sure to rank as the warmest year on record for our planet, and much milder than normal weather in the U.S., accentuated by a record smashing December, fits right into the global picture.

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NOAA announced today that 2015 finished as the second warmest year for the Lower 48 in records dating back to 1880. It was a super toasty December that really pushed the year into a historically warm position.

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Second only to 2012.Unfortunately this is only for the lower 48 states, not the world.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Actually what I was referring to was that the costs for new production of electricity was fairly balanced - ie we have reached the tipping point where from this point forward it will become increasingly cheaper to produce electricity with solar and new fossil fuel plants.The evidence for this is not only the rapid growth of home solar installations, such as mine, across the nation: a trend that will continue to replace grid production facilities;but the fact that utility companies are also increasingly turning to solar power for new production.Enjoy

This is the second time you have said this.What is your OS? have you tried to download adobe reader? (adobe created the pdf format)It is a fairly small free program or ap. I have it on my tablet, my linux computer and my windows computer, and can read PDF's and even copy from them to excerpt for comments.

The production costs keep dropping and the efficiency of the panels keeps increasing as technological advances make improvements. This industry is still in it's infancy, and like computing power I would expect the trend to cheaper solar energy to continue for some time.Enjoy.

Agreed, as long as ALL the costs are included in the equations. And even larger hidden costs that are not included in your balance sheet: ecological disaster on a global scale. This is not something to be treated lightly.The lands where fracking is now being done to extract fossil fuel energy has laid the landscape as desolate and barren as 'Mordor,' causes earthquakes in surrounding areas and permanently poisons water aquifers that people rely on to live.I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf is still wreaking havoc on the ecosystems there and poisoning the food supply. (and you can still find lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez spill).I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.The number of explosions and oil spill from the Tar sands distributions have impacted ecologies and homes in a continuing pattern.I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.The massive methane gas leak has caused evacuation of all residential areas down-wind at great disturbance to homeowners lives. And they still don't know how to cap it (BP oil spill scenario played out again?)I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.Global climate change due to use of fossil fuels is causing increased extinction of species and alteration of livable areas, and has already caused civil unrest in Syria, with more to follow. The massive emigration from that area is impacting all of Europe.I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column.Then there are the Iraq wars fought to gain control of oil supplies at the cost of millions of lives and the disruption of whole societies not just families.I put that in the real costs outweigh the benefits column. And those hidden costs that outweigh those benefits are catching up to us now, and it is time to pay the piper. Starting with getting off fossil fuels and onto renewable energy. The technology is there. The resources are there. What is missing is political will from corporate controlled governments.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..

You have your biases Jon and I have mine. Except that there actually is documentation of the cause -- several years of unnatural drought caused by global climate change caused by fossil fuel use caused collapse of agricultural farming and cattle raising. The farmers moved to the cities when they could no longer live on the farms and petitioned their government for assistance on the farms. Protests started and got larger as nothing was done to help them. Then the government started attacking and killing the protesters, and the rest you might know if you paid any attention.Yes -- fossil fuel overuse lead to the Syrian conflict. Look it up and educate yourself rather than blithely dismiss it.Here's some more hidden cost to balance against perceived benefit:

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Goodbye, oceans! Study finds ecosystems headed toward a major collapse

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Hungry for some mahi mahi? Too bad! According to new study from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seafood may soon be a thing of the past.

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Researchers from the University of Adelaide analyzed 632 recent papers on ocean ecosystems and found that the ability of these systems to acclimate to warmer water and increased acidification is limited. As both continue unabated, few marine species will be able to survive the cascading effects of global climate change, and food chains will start to collapse. The one exception? Microorganisms.

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Care to calculate the cost to repair the ocean ecosystems? And now we are paying the price for it. It was only "cheap" because not all the costs are included in your balance sheet.Look at the cost benefit of nuclear energy and include the cost to treat and dispose of the waste in a safe and sane manner.It should not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the cost of restoration of the extraction of energy costs more than you can realize from the fossil fuel and nuclear energy ... because entropy. The only way you beat that is with an external source of energy ... the sun. No Jon, it is balancing those negatives against what was borrowed in the past by NOT properly focusing on them at the time.But fossil fuels are no longer cheap either when those costs are still ignored. Every time I fill up my car and get giddy over prices under $2/gallon I remind myself that it used to cost $0.25/gal when I first started driving. And the energy to advance technology like solar power generation and LED lights so that we can move forward to an even better society that doesn't have to destroy the earth to have those benefits. Look at India using solar panels to spread electricity to their rural areas and see that this is the future. Look at the tar sand wastelands and see that it is the past.The time has come to change, and the change that is available right now is better for us and for the planet, and it can only get better.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : added oceans and nuclear to the list