Posted on 12/14/2023 1:00:13 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
Renewables are reaching the point where they are outcompeting fossil fuels on price — setting the stage for their predicted dominance of the energy sector by midcentury.
When it comes to the surging demand for new electric generation, wind and solar prices are now the cheapest options almost everywhere, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Building new wind and solar projects is also cheaper than running existing coal plants, according to a report from Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan climate policy think tank.
The fall in price has led to a global rush to install new wind and solar — which the IEA noted expanded by nearly 25 percent in 2023, powered by record installations.
And the IEA added that prices are falling further — particularly in the U.S., where the tax credits from the Democrats’ 2022 clean energy stimulus will begin to take full effect in 2024.
In 2021 — before the passage of the sweeping subsidies for clean energy included in that stimulus — the U.S. government estimated that no matter what, solar power was likely to make up half of U.S. electric generation by midcentury.
The country is passing a “tipping point” beyond which renewables are the status quo option, said Timothy Lenton, chair of the climate department at the University of Exeter.
Lenton said that by midcentury, even if climate policies remain no more generous than they are now, renewables will make up three-quarters of U.S. electricity production.
Lenton is a coauthor of a recent report by the Bezos Earth Fund that found power generation from renewables was doubling on average every 3 1/2 years worldwide.
This level of renewable adoption, he argued, is becoming the floor of global ambition, not the ceiling. At the United Nations climate conference (COP28) in Dubai last week, the U.S. joined 110 other nations in agreeing to triple renewable energy production.
“And if you add more climate policies, it will only go faster,” Lenton said, noting this level of growth was becoming both exponential and “hard to stop.”
“There’s a self-propelling, ever stronger feedback loop behind the transformation,” he said. The question now, he said, isn’t whether the change is going to happen. “Now it’s more about how fast or slow to go, and how hard are the incumbents going to fight to hold the status quo.”
“it just means the taxpayer is paying for it”
Not with a TWO TRILLION DOLLAR deficit in 2023 and TRILLION DOLLAR deficits as far as the eye can see.
Those massive deficits cause inflation, so I guess could argue we DO pay for it through the extra $11,000 all of us are paying for the necessities of life in 2023...and every year thereafter.
“International Energy Agency (IEA)”.... awfully deceptive name for an unofficial unrepresentative organization that really isn’t an “agency.”
The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 association countries of the IEA represent 75% of global energy demand. Wikipedia
Headquarters: 9, rue de la Fédération, Paris, France
Subsidiary: International Energy Agency, Research Division
Founded: November 1974
Executive director: Fatih Birol
Great plan but it needs an addition: Must start with the White house and congress buildings. .
China became an affiliate of the France-based organization IEA in 2015...
2015 is also when the Turkish economist Fatih Birol took the helm of that organization.
Yes agree, renewables are nirvana, cheaper,safer for the environment ….. no need for tax breaks and credits
Carry on ,
(In best Colombo voice) just one more question is that why several of the wind projects of the eastern coast were cancelled?
All Federal Buildings in DC should run on renewable energy, especially in summer.
Price of wood is up like everything else.
“Renewables are reaching the point where they are outcompeting fossil fuels on price “
Absolute Steaming Lie! Nothing but pure BS!
Monday and Tuesday there were 6 planes spraying 24/7 here in West Texas. The sky went from totally clear to completely covered in gray slush. Believe it, they are insane, otherwise how are you going to get rid of 7 and on half billion useless eaters to make way for the 500 million remaining elites.
ROTFLMAO! Firstly a tax break is not a subsidy. Secondly, I have to wonder what you’re smoking if you think oil and gas get anywhere near the massive subsidies doled out to so-called “renewables”.
Price advantage? What freakin price advantage?
Our forests will all be stripped naked if they ban coal, oil and natural gas. There’ll be big money in fast-growing firewood tree plantations.
“...at which point the West will start to build coal plants again.”
And ALL of the plants will be imported from India and China along with the Indian and Chinese engineers to build and run them because we will have lost all our technical capability for 50 years. We’ll have solar and wind engineers out the wazoo, but nobody will want them. Then some future president can tell them all to “Learn to code.”
Never mind.
The sun drives our winds. Ask any sailor...
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