2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?

You still haven't dealt with the fact that increased overall well-being proves the benefits from fossil fuels outweigh their costs.As for droughts in the ME, you're forgetting that drought has always been a problem with history offering plenty of examples of droughts far more severe than what the ME is now facing - many at great loss of life and livelihood.Advanced, first-world societies have not successfully dealt with droughts by trying to keep the planet cool but by burning large amounts of fossil fuels taking steps to minimize their impact on human life.Fossil fuels or not there will always be droughts. It's just that with fossil fuels we can at least survive them.

A simple illustration should suffice to discredit your thesis:Newcomen's engine was highly inefficient. Watt improved its efficiency, enabling more water to be pumped with less coal ("more with less").But at the larger level, did Watt's improvements in efficiency to Newcomen's engine increase or decrease the amount of coal England used?Did it really mean more with less or did it actually mean more with more?

Well why the fuck didn't you say that three posts ago?How is anyone supposed to understand something that you don't say?You are correct that technology has enabled us to output more units of goods per unit of input. But that increase in efficiency has only really been beneficial because it has, at every turn, fueled an overall increase in extraction and consumption - the rise in material wealth that distinguishes modern civilizations from all the others.We are only better off because on the whole we consume more (in total and per person) than we used to.

You're missing my point.There will always be droughts, man made or otherwise. Cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy has been the best way to mitigate their effects - not stopping our civilizations dead in their tracks.And so far, only fossil fuels have been shown capable of providing this cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy. I've opened numerous doors for you and others to walk through and show your evidence that renewables could instead provide this cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy. Yet not once has any effort been made to demonstrate this. I WANT CLEAN, LOW-COST, LESS-RISKY ENERGY! But I also want energy that is affordable, reliable, and in good supply because that is what makes my life so damn good and will continue to make all of our lives so damn good.Now this is easy, RAZD, to win me over all you have to do is show that renewables can take the place of fossil fuels in providing cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy and I'll be all in.Until then I'm going to stick my money where the energy is. You can't magically create water to 'alleviate a drought'. What you can do is use cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy to grow food elsewhere, and use that same cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy to transport that food where the drought is so it doesn't turn into a famine - as droughts always have before humans started using fossil fuels to provide themselves with cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy.We need cheap, reliable, and plentiful energy to survive on this unforgiving rock. If renewables can provide that, amazing! But if not, the evidence suggests we are better off continuing to get it from fossil fuels than to give it up.

It gives me the same idea I've always had: there are specific instances where renewables might be preferable, such as remote, sunny islands where cheaper alternatives are in short supply or missing altogether.Hawai'i sounds like a great place to run on solar - which really does make one wonder why it doesn't. But that doesn't have much to do with places like Maryland. Speaking of which, I think I'm still waiting on those figures from you to show how Maryland can meet all their energy needs with just a few square miles of solar panels.What's stopping Maryland? For that matter, what's stopping sunny Hawai'i?

It's not just about finding instances where it's cheaper. It's about showinging that it's scalable. That's what my inquiries into your claims about Maryland meeting all its energy needs with just a few square miles of solar panels have been getting at.To go for a moment back to the example of steam technology, Newcomen's invention was perhaps more efficient (and effective) than alternatives, but its outrageous use of coal made it impracticable as a power source pretty much anywhere other than at a coal mine.Its benefits at the coal mine disappeared once away from the mine. It was limited in where and how it could be used and was thus not scalable.I think there are similar obstacles facing solar. It shows itself to be effective in certain instances, but because of technological limitations - lack of good power storage systems, unreliable sunlight, limited land area, etc. - it isn't scalable to meet the demands energy-hungry advanced societies.

So we're done talking about Maryland then, eh?

Did you actually read what you quoted?The whole thing is an accounting trick.Do you even know what net metering is?Edited by Jon, : ty po

I'm not sure what's with the wise-ass routine.It really isn't possible to transport electricity very long distances.It really is the case that sunlight is unreliable and many places get very little.The kind of solar power that works in the Nevada desert doesn't work in the woods of northern Minnesota.

Yes.That's what I said.

So you have no interest in actually backing up the propaganda you've been spraying about?Figures...

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Wikipedia on Solar Power in Germany:

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Solar power in Germany consists almost exclusively of photovoltaics (PV) and accounted for an estimated 6.2 to 6.9 percent of the country's net-electricity generation in 2014. The country has been the world's top PV installer for several years and still leads in terms of the overall installed capacity...

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The world's top installer still gets less than a tenth of its power from solar cells - and that's just averaged out over given periods of time; just like Columbia, Maryland, Germany sells off its power on the European grid when it's making a lot and does what everyone else who needs reliable power does when the cells aren't producing: burns fossil fuels.

quote:

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Wikipedia on Electric Power Transmission:

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Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 6.6% in 1997[14] and 6.5% in 2007.

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Germany's solar capacity couldn't even make up half of what goes up into the air as transmission loss in the U.S.So yeah, we should do what Germany does and send some solar-generated electricity into the air... Now please... no more. My sides are starting to hurt.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

All you have is anecdote. The actual evidence - Columbia, Maryland, Germany, etc. - shows that solar is shit when it comes to providing the kind of energy required by advanced first-world societies.And coal isn't losing to solar; it's losing to natural gas - a fossil fuel, in case there was any doubt.

I did? Where?

And how much electricity is that?