It’s getting more cost effective, but it will always need load leveling. But I found this amusing:
Looking even further ahead, if we want a stable climate, humanity must bring net carbon emissions to zero.
There is no good reason to believe bringing net carbon emissions to zero is either a necessary or a sufficient condition for a “stable climate.” This planet has never had a stable climate, and it’s delusional to imagine that we know how to give it one now.
Speaking of which, Professor Curry has some thoughts on “skin in the game.”
If you are a weather forecaster in the private sector, you will quickly lose your clients if your forecasts are consistently wrong. Daily forecasts are evaluated daily; seasonal forecasts are evaluated several times each year. Clearly weather forecasters have skin in the game in terms of their forecasts.
With regards to climate projections, the predictions being made now will be irrelevant in 2100, which is their target prediction date. In fact, the forecasts become obsolete every 5 years or so, as new model versions are implemented. Recent attempts to evaluate climate model projections in CMIP5 during the early 21st century have shown striking discrepancies between model projections and observations.
Defenders of the climate models and climate model projections argue that climate models shouldn’t be expected to verify on decadal time scales.
In other words, climate modelers have no skin in the game in terms of losing something if their forecasts turn out to be wrong. In fact, there is actually a perversion of skin in the game, whereby scientists are rewarded (professional recognition, grants, etc.) if they make alarming predictions (even if they are easily shown not to comport with observations).
Let’s give them more money!
Given the diffuse nature of the energy source, there are costs associated with it even if the photocells are “free.”
Rooftop solar, especially, you have to deal with the cost of installing something covering a large portion of your roof. The economy-of-scale question is probably why our local utility is “pushing” a “community” solar project rather than rooftops.
This community solar project is offered at a premium over your conventional electric power. It is hence for the “Whole Foods” crowd who somehow sleep better at night doing this. OK, the solar power subscription locks in a rate, and maybe you come out ahead if conventional power “skyrockets” (the president’s words) in price.
That’s the thing — if this is driven by a war on fossil fuels by a misguided understanding of the environmental impact of same, and the policy is to make solar competitive by making electricity just plain expensive, I say forget this. If solar proves to be a low cost source of power, I say bring it on.
Finally, why my obsession over cost and price? First, cost is a pretty good way of accounting for resource intensity. If something costs more, you have to ask what resources are going into this thing, whether solar cells, lithium batteries, permanent magnet electric motors. Also, money spent “here” means less money to spend “over there.” That is the concern I have with anti-market decisions, whether it is by government edict or by individuals seeking to establish their green street cred.
The cheap solar being referred to in the linked article is utility scale. It is far cheaper than residential solar. Most PV being installed in the US is now utility scale.
The climate has never been stable….at least on earth.
Want an exemplar of a (mostly) stable climate? Look at the Moon.
Defenders of the climate models and climate model projections argue that climate models shouldn’t be expected to verify on decadal time scales.
The claim that climate science is bad in the short term but remarkably accurate on centuries or millennia time scales has also come off as a little too self serving. You can claim anything you want if everyone will be dead when it comes time to check predictions.
These claims also imply a natural variability that could render short term predictions invalid but then dismiss natural variability in what the Earth is experiencing. When the climatic changes we witness are well within natural variability, there should be an extremely high bar for claiming impending apocalypse. Especially because as Curry notes, they have no skin in the game.
Also, why don’t the AGW alarmists, who go ape against anyone who disagrees with them, ever mount campaigns to silence people who claim we can stop the climate from changing?
There is no good reason to believe bringing net carbon emissions to zero is either a necessary or a sufficient condition for a “stable climate.
On the other hand, how long do you think we can continue to release net CO2? Either we run out of fossil fuel or the CO2 rises to a level that causes problems. You don’t think there is no such level, do you?
CO2 levels twice current won’t be a problem.
I don’t have any reason to think that there is any predictable such level.