New renewables to power 40 per cent of global electricity demand by 2050 (With global cooperation)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://climatecongress.ku.dk/newsroom/renewable_energy/

New renewables to power 40 per cent of global electricity demand by 2050

- With global cooperation and investment, renewables? share will exceed all previous estimates

11 March 2009

With adequate financial and political support, renewable energy technologies like wind and photovoltaics could supply 40 percent of the world's electricity by 2050, according to findings from the International Scientific Congress "Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions." However, if such technologies are marginalized, its share is likely to hover below 15 percent.

This research was presented at a press conference by Peter Lund of the Helsinki University of Technology's Advanced Energy Systems in Espoo, Finland, ahead of the scheduled congress session titled, "Renewable Energies: How Far Can They Take Us?"

"Our findings demonstrate that with global political support and financial investment, previous notions that the potential for renewables was in some way limited to a negligible fraction of world demand were wrong," said Lund. "If we prioritize and recognize the value of renewable energy technologies, their potential to supply us with the energy we need is tremendous."

Previous projections put renewables' share at only 12 percent by 2030. Other research within the same congress session further supports the viability of renewables, examining closely the limitations and potential of wind, biomass and biofuels.

…

[Demeter]

1. Not to Mention the Colllapse of Corporate Fossil Fuel Industries

It's easy to grow if the competition is shrinking or dying out, and it's happening, slowly, but definitely.

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. When this is Good News

I must assume we are totally hosed. It appears that consumption of Coal for electric generation must be incrteasing thru 2050, if only 40% of 2050 electric consumption is to come from renewables. If the world was only composed of the Industrialised segments that might have a chance. But with the majority of the worlds population is in the developing world, I don't believe people get the scale of the problem even here.

[GliderGuider]

3. ...and with investment

45 percent of world's wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO

"Between 40 and 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half," Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. "This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime."

Oh well, at least we've still got international cooperation, right?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. 40-45% of our wealth was destroyed on paper

Much of that "wealth" is illusory.

If someone bought a share of stock for 1$, and it went up to 10$, and then went down to 2$ but then went back up to 5$ but then fell all the way back down to 1$… how much money did they lose?

[GliderGuider]

5. So nobody was planning to use any of that illusory wealth to fund windmills?

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. It's kind of like Schrödinger's cat

You know, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat">Schrödinger's cat is only really dead (or alive) when you've opened the box to see.

Losses (and gains) in the stock market become "real" when you sell the stock.

Yesterday, the stock markets went up. Did we all become richer? (Really?)

[GliderGuider]

7. Problem is, if you want to buy a windmill you have to open the box to take out the money....

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Actually, you don't

You just need to go to the bank and borrow some money. When they ask you for collateral, you say, "I have a cat in this box…"

[Nihil]

9. Sounds exactly like how the banks & traders have been working recently ...

... wandering around with a dead cat in a box while everyone trusts them
that there's a live one ...

:think:

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. Ah! you caught my humor!

Years ago, I had a pair of camp counselors for a week. The female counselor thought I was the funniest thing on two legs, the male counselor… well… not so much. He spent much of the week trying to figure out what was so funny.

At the end of the week, he told me he felt like he had missed the first half of all of my jokes. The female counselor laughed, and I said, "Yeah… well… my humor is often referential. If you don't get the reference, you probably won't get the joke."