2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?

Well, it really isn't blown away like steam in a warm wind, now is it? We would still have the solar energy system and the flow of funds to fund a solar project spreads into the economy and there are all kinds of positive spin-off effects of developing technologies, jobs, improvements in people's lives, and possibly lessening our negative impact on the environment and climate of this planet. What does more productive mean? More of the wealth of the planet transferred to the 1%? More degradation of the biosphere? More jobs, more money flowing through the economy, a better life for more people? You are correct, but that has been the methodology up until now.For example, we have been living in a "Do it and see what happens" approach to the economy since 1980 when Reagan changed the course of our economy and started the largest and longest transfer of wealth to the rich and ultrarich in U.S. history.During this same period, big business and big banking have overseen the dismantling of any possibility of a regulatory system to constrain their greed or criminality.For example, the growth of the petroleum-dependent civilization since 1900 was a huge "Do it and see what happens" approach. We ended up blowing billions of dollars that could have gone to something more productive. Like a civilization based on Hydrogen and a source of energy.The "Industrial Revolution" and all of its benefits and banes and all the different aspects of it are examples of "Do it and see what happens".I like the beneficial aspects of being alive in America during this age, but I wish we Humans could stop fucking everything up, especially endangering future generation's survival.Edited by Tanypteryx, : grammer

There's no guarantee of a better world.

That's not how it works.Just because you give the money to someone to blow doesn't mean the money isn't being blown.And endangering future generations' survival?Each generation has lived longer than the one before - and that because of, not in spite of, increasing our consumption of fossil fuels and the cheap energy they make possible.And that is really what my inquiries are all about: can solar be shown to have the same potential to offer cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy that fossil fuels provide? Right now the evidence shows that every generation that burns more coal, gas, and oil lives longer, wealthier, and happier lives than the generations before it. There is a possibility that alternatives to fossil fuels may not be capable of delivering this generational increases in standards of living and that using resources developing these technologies is what really endangers future generations by depriving them of the benefits we know they would have gotten from burning fossil fuels.

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

I offered links to 3 studies (all PDFs which my computer doesn't read however), and I provided the context (by linking them through recent high quality articles). Perhaps I better just present them without my commentary, because they seem to have gotten lost in the discussion.Page not found - NC Clean Energy Technology Centerhttp://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-6912e.pdfHere is a link (though the WSJ links are tricky) to the conservative Wall Street Journal and an article which covers the current solar situation. It has hyper-links to 2 studies (direct links above and I hope they work). Ill quote the linked part, but you need to go to the WSJ text in the article (I can't paste the hyper link with the text).

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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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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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The Hole in the Rooftop Solar-Panel Craze - WSJ

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Then the Counterpunch article which hyper-links the Howie Hawkins plan which would have cut energy prices in half(!) by 2030 in New York state (had Hawkins not lost 54% to 5% to Cuomo) - using green energy, and created enough government funded green jobs along the way that unemployment would have been ended along the way.

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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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What's Wrong With Cuomo's Energy Plan? - CounterPunch.org

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These are studies which show that (1)utility-scale solar is just as cheap as fossil fuels ALREADY in parts of the country, (2) rooftop solar is a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels in most cities , and (3) long term energy costs go WAY down with green energy.

The claims your sources make about solar don't match up with the claims you make.For example, your sources say that solar can work fairly well when done in large installations in very sunny areas.Then you make the claim that: [i]t would only take a few square miles of solar panels (on top of roofs) to fuel the energy needs of the entre state [of Maryland].Solar sounds alright - where it works. But it doesn't work everywhere.It's also not true that: Solar is a technology that always gets cheaper ...Not only not true, but the opposite of true. The cost of solar increases as it is scaled up: as the most suitable locations for solar installations are used up, new installations must be made in less suitable locations, which may mean more panels required or reduced energy output (or both); that increases the cost.You also claim that solar can be cost-competitive, but then cite research (and apparently agree with it) that points out all the government protections and spending required to make it so - meaning it's not actually cost-competitive but just the opposite.So maybe I need to ask my questions in a different way:Dealing just with the claim that Maryland can meet all of its energy needs with just a few square miles of solar, I think you need to bring to the table:

• the amount of energy solar can generate in the least favorable conditions,
• the amount of space required to generate each of those units of energy in those conditions, and
• the maximum energy needs of the state of Maryland

Right now you're just pointing to people who are saying the same thing you are saying, but that's not really how evidence works. It's not just enough to show that others agree with you; you have to also show that they (and so you) are right.

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.

One of the imbalances of these discussions is that emphasis is always placed on the benefits of 'clean' energy such as solar and the risks of 'dirty' fossil fuels.But that should not be the end of our discussion, nor should such a limited perspective guide our decision making.What matters most is the cost-benefit analysis of the two situations. They both have their good and their bad, and we need to consider the good and bad about both of them.Burning fossil fuels has costs, but is also comes with huge benefits. In fact, those benefits have more than out-paced the costs in societies that burn large quantities of fossil fuels. People forget just how wicked and unforgiving of a whore Mother Nature really is. In a 'natural' (unaltered by humans) environment, we live disgustingly miserable and short lives - if we live at all. Only by transforming our environment (e.g., cleaning water) or creating protections against it (e.g., housing) can we overcome this brutal reality. And fossil fuels allow us to do these things to an unprecedented degree. We suffer less at the hands of our environment today than we ever have in the past.It's why life expectancy continues to rise, child mortality decline, and all other deaths by environmental factors (freezing to death, heatstroke, insect-carried diseases, crop failure, etc.) are extremely rare - in societies utilizing the cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy provided by fossil fuels to transform their environment and adapt themselves to it.Hence my belief that we should not give up our use of fossil fuels unless the alternatives show themselves to be equal to or superior in terms of their benefits to costs ratios.At the level of societies, I have not seen evidence that solar's benefits are beyond its costs or that it even comes close to measuring up to fossil fuels in terms of its ability to improve human life. It's silly, to me, for folks in developed societies to enjoy all the fruits of fossil fuels while still pushing for inferior solar power - but our nations are rich and mighty and can afford such past times. Where I really take issue is in the green movement's expectation that developing societies meet their energy needs using only solar/wind and very little coal, oil, etc. - and the damning to disgustingly miserable and short lives that this entails - while the first world continues meeting their needs with the far superior technology of fossil fuels. This is, in my opinion, horrendously unethical.

Categorical nonsense. Each generation has, on the whole lived longer and better than the one before because of the increasing, accelerating emergence of new technologies that allow us to do more with less. The organized capture and application of energy was an enabler of this, but the paleobiological nature of this energy is not wholly responsible for this technological emergence. Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

I put in Howie Hawkins and related terms into google. I figured he would still be on a lot of webpages because he did get a fair amount of attention. I lived in Manhattan during the 2014 race, and he got some historic endorsements (for a 3rd party candidate running against a Democrat). He made a pretty good case that the Democratic party is getting progressives nowhere, especially on green energy and environmental type issues.Here are the top 10 web cache quotes under each link (I wont try to paste the links because that doesn't work)

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Google

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Howie Hawkins & Green Party Challenge to Cuomo: We Need a Green New Deal ... His draft energy plan says we're going to switch from coal-fired to ... That gets us to half the cost for electricity in the decade 2020-2030 ...

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Nov 4, 2014 - Can Green Party Candidate Howie Hawkins Make Cuomo Oppose Fracking? .... Deala plan to fully transition to renewable-energy sources by 2030 that he says would create 4.5 million jobs and cut electricity rates in half.

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Climate Action Plans ... New York needs to commit to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030. ... Green energy is also the path to full employment and lower energy rates. ... Rochester People's Climate Change / Mother's Out Front; Howie Hawkins, Green Party; Herb Orignel, Sustainable Westchester; Lyna Hinkel, 350NYC.

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Oct 29, 2014 - Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for governor of New York State, ... switch to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 using technology that exists now. ... there would be 4.5 million new jobs and it would cut electric rates in half. ... The Green New Deal is a six-point plan that Hawkins is up front about ...

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Oct 22, 2014 - Hawkins Wins Governor Debate: With Substance and Plans Green Party's ... (BUFFALO, New York)Green Party candidate for New York Governor Howie ... I will create millions of jobs by building a 100% clean energy system by 2030. ... We need a public bank to reduce cost of financing investments in ...

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Oct 13, 2014 - Howie Hawkins visited Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania on October 9 to see ... Climate change is a planetary emergency — renewable energy is a solution to the ... to a 100% clean, renewable energy system in New York by 2030. ... would create 4.5 million new jobs and cut electric power rates in half.

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Aug 19, 2014 - Meet Howie ... Investment in Clean Energy is Best Job Creation Strategy ... investing in transitioning to a 100% clean renewable energy system by 2030. ... State, which has the highest electric rates in the lower 48 states, Hawkins said. ... permanent jobs would be created in energy facilities under the plan.

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Oct 29, 2014 - Yesterday he made a statement endorsing Howie Hawkins for ... Only Howie Hawkins has unequivocally stated that he will ban fracking and promote renewable energy. ... to disclose how their business plans fare in a low-carbon future. ... based on renewables by 2030, while lowering electric costs by 50% ...

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Howie Hawkins for Syracuse City Auditor, 2015: Howie Hawkins for NY ... Deal to create an emergency transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030. The plan includes public control and ownership of a decentralized energy system while ... clean energy at a much faster rate now that the Paris agreement has lowered its ...

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Jun 6, 2014 - The president's plan also promotes more nuclear energy and ... oil, and natural gas as our energy sources, said Howie Hawkins, ... By calling for only a second round of 15% cuts (355 million tonnes) from 2014 to 2030, the Obama plan ... Pricing carbon needn't result in onerous new costs for the economy.

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Remember his plan was peer-reviewed and it spelled out the costs exactly. So far as I know, he made the best case ever for the benefits of green policies. (I don't have the benefit of knowing what else has been proposed however)

Huh?More with less?That's utter bullshit and you know it!We have done more and used more - of everything - since the beginning of modern industrialism and capitalism.Doing more with less... what total nonsense...

Jon quoted me and took issue

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"(1)utility-scale solar is just as cheap as fossil fuels ALREADY in parts of the country, (2) rooftop solar is a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels in most cities , and (3) long term energy costs go WAY down with green energy."

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The claims your sources make about solar don't match up with the claims you make.

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For example, your sources say that solar can work fairly well when done in large installations in very sunny areas.

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Then you make the claim that: it would only take a few square miles of solar panels (on top of roofs) to fuel the energy needs of the entre state [of Maryland].

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Solar sounds alright - where it works. But it doesn't work everywhere.

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Forget the Maryland issue (I never said houses were in the "few square" mile space either btw.) but lets focus on my sources. I quoted a very recent article (important since prices are constantly changing) from the conservative Wall Street Journal. It took issue with the academic study that showed electricity rates dropping for 93% of households in the 50 largest cities that SWITCHED TO ROOFTOP SOLAR. The Wall Street Journal article didn't think that the issue of "new metering" should be overlooked, since it was a "subsidy", according to the author's stated opinion. I linked to the conservative Forbes publication which defended that capitalist concept of "net metering"

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Net Energy Metering -- Are We Capitalists Or What?

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James Conca ,
Contributor

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I write about nuclear, energy and the environment

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The public thinks that electricity is all about what generates it. Coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar or biomass, heated discussions have focused on costs, carbon and reliability.

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Few know or care about the grid that delivers the electricity. It’s as important. But net metering just doesn’t sound like a hot issue. Nevertheless, it could become a major problem in the future if we don’t get it right.

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Net metering, or net energy metering (NEM), is a billing system that credits small customers at the full retail electric price for any excess electricity they generate and sell to their local electric company via the grid from on-site small sources such as residential rooftop solar arrays.

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Currently in place in 43 states and the District of Columbia, net metering is becoming another unnecessarily controversial issue.

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Net Energy Metering -- Are We Capitalists Or What?

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There is a hyper-link in the last sentence/paragraph, if you read the actual article.Rooftop-solar typically includes a "30% off" initial-purchase tax credit (which a person can deduct from their income tax IF they have a high enough total income tax for the year they made their rooftop solar panel purchase) then "net metering" issues come into play when "the grid" involves total electricity sent and received from this person's house per month. People like me see it as a "net" produced energy issue, but utility companies feel that the energy hurts their bottom line because they can purchase energy wholesale from their traditional production sources. The utility companies want exclusive rights to sell to consumers. They want profits and don't care about net energy issues. I care about "net energy" use because I don't think produced energy should be overlooked or wasted.Rooftop solar can be purchased outright (if the person has the money) or financed by a loan and paid back month by month. The monthly bill will be cheaper regardless.Your response "For example, your sources say that solar can work fairly well when done in large installations in very sunny areas" was a different issue. This was the utility-scale issue and specifically referred to solar powered plants. It is a complex way to look at prices and it understates the value of solar IMO but here is a Wikipedia link which explains what this means. It is complicated.Grid parity - WikipediaThe Wall Street journal linked to the academic studies that showed the "south-west" region has clear skies and the unsubsidized output of solar-plants matches coal-fired and gas-fired plants already.I didn't see the study and I don't know how much of a percent of the U.S. population falls under this area but I would assume that 1/3 of the U.S. population lives in an area where current solar-plant prices are already within 30%(on average) of the typical cost of coal & natural gas-fired plants. A large federal government program, which makes a historic effort to build a record amount of solar-plants in the region, would makes the "price parity" close to a match because solar has a lot to gain in reduced cost from bulk-purchases (simply because it has been underdeveloped to date).Big solar programs will reduce the cost of natural gas (as well as solar technology), but big natural gas government programs would shoot gas prices up and not help to reduce solar prices. Solar has a major macro-economic benefit that is almost 100% absent in the commentary we hear.

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It's also not true that: Solar is a technology that always gets cheaper ...

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Not only not true, but the opposite of true. The cost of solar increases as it is scaled up: as the most suitable locations for solar installations are used up, new installations must be made in less suitable locations, which may mean more panels required or reduced energy output (or both); that increases the cost.

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Actually it gets cheaper when it is scaled up, on matter what the specific topic is (utility-scale plants , bulk purchases of ANY solar product, etc.)Utility-scale plants loose energy when they have to travel distances over wires, so rooftop is better when all other factors are equal. Utility-scale does enable one to build the panels in areas absent anything obstructing the sun such as trees, buildings, etc..As for solar not always getting cheaper (I was referring to the cost per watt btw), the only times it goes up is when there is a disruption in trade or when a subsidy ends. Obama slapped a 35% tariff on Chinese producers in early 2015 to protect American producers, and that sent prices up (American producers actually altruistically objected to the tariff because they knew that raising prices hurts the technology's long term potential to become cheaper).The unsubsidized price of the technology has dropped every year for as long as I have been paying attention.

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You also claim that solar can be cost-competitive, but then cite research (and apparently agree with it) that points out all the government protections and spending required to make it so - meaning it's not actually cost-competitive but just the opposite.

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What do you mean by cost-competitive?Short term or long term?Do you consider "net-metering" a subsidy?Considering that Howie Hawkins is honest about the short-term and long term costs (unlike the Keystone Pipelines supporters who claim that millions of jobs would be created when the permanent jobs number in the 100s) and considering that his plan was peer-reviewed, lets look at some details.

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"Rather than invest resources in developing nineteenth-century fuels and fossil fuel infrastructure, we need to invest in renewable energy. Climate change is a planetary emergency renewable energy is a solution to the climate crisis and to the jobs crisis," Hawkins said.

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Hawkins presented an alternative energy plan for New York as part of his "Green New Deal" that aims to help the middle class by creating green jobs.

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The plan centers around individually-owned solar panels and wind turbines which would hook into community smart grids. If an individual's turbines or panels produce an excess of energy, it can be transferred to other customers in the grid or stored in fuel cells until it is needed.

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The community smart grids would be interconnected through a statewide smart grid, which Hawkins calls "the big investment" in the system. The decentralized statewide system would be backed up by solar and wind farms, as well as large-scale facilities that collect solar thermal and geothermal energy.

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A report prepared for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation estimated that the green-lighting of hydrofracking would create between 6,198 and 36,989 full-time construction and production jobs at the industry's peak, estimated to be 30 years from the time fracking is green lighted.

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The report also estimates hydrofracking would indirectly create between 7,293 and 43,521 jobs in other industries at peak employment.

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Hawkins says his Green New Deal would create 4.5 million construction jobs and 58,000 permanent jobs.

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Page not found – The Legislative Gazette

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Jon then said

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So maybe I need to ask my questions in a different way:

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Dealing just with the claim that Maryland can meet all of its energy needs with just a few square miles of solar, I think you need to bring to the table:
the amount of energy solar can generate in the least favorable conditions,
the amount of space required to generate each of those units of energy in those conditions, and
the maximum energy needs of the state of Maryland
Right now you're just pointing to people who are saying the same thing you are saying, but that's not really how evidence works. It's not just enough to show that others agree with you; you have to also show that they (and so you) are right.

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I have been referencing conservative sources for most of my studies. At least 2 of my studies were seen through the eyes of a Wall Street Journal article. I balanced out the critical article with a Forbes article defending "net metering" as capitalist and fair. With "net metering" , solar-panels are cheaper. Net metering reflects energy produced PERIOD. Regardless of whether you agree with the 43 states (including conservative ones) policies or not.Solar is cheaper for 93% of those who purchased the panels. That includes the initial cost of the panel. All one can do is object by saying that "net metering is an unfair subsidy" but that still doesn't say anything against the ability of solar to produce the energy.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

You are responding to this statement of mine: My statement is correct, your misinterpretation of it notwithstanding. Technology has increasingly allowed human civilization to do more with less.We can now circle the planet in an hour in small rockets made of advanced materials. In the 1800s, it took a much larger steel steamship two weeks to circumnavigate the planet. That's doing more with less: accomplishing the same task in less time with less material.I don't need to belabor the obvious: we have the increasing capability to do more with fewer square inches of material.But you're ignoring my main point: that our present socioeconomic dependence on paleobiological energy is a contingency of history; there is no fundamental chemical or physical reason why we must have a reliance on fossil fuels.