Fossil fuels should be 'phased out by 2100' says IPCC

BBC News ^ | November 2, 2014 | By Matt McGrath

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The unrestricted use of fossil fuels must end soon if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.

That is the central message of a stark new report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC urges that by 2050, most of the world's electricity must - and can - be produced from low carbon sources.

Fossil fuels, without carbon capture and storage (CCS), should be phased out "almost entirely" by 2100.

It re-states many familiar positions:

Warming is "unequivocal" and the human influence on climate is clear

Since the 1950s the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia

The period from 1983 to 2012, it says, was likely the warmest 30 year period of the last 1,400 years

Warming impacts are already being seen around the globe, in the acidification of the oceans, the melting of arctic ice and poorer crop yields in many parts

Without concerted action on carbon, temperatures will increase over the coming decades and could be almost 5C above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century

[bestintxas]

“At some point, the price of natural gas will move up to a point where nuclear power is cost effective to build. I also expect that we will finally have fusion reactors generating electricity.”

You have one plausible scenario, certainly.

There are other, equally similar ones, perhaps some might think even more so.

One must subscribe to people accepting nuclear over hydrocarbons to the one you subscribe to.

Mine is that there is so much abundancy of natural gas that we will have HUNDREDS of years of supply that is relatively cheap, accessible and clean-burning(read environmentally friendly).

Why do I say this? Besides the generosity of supply given to us naturally by God (it is called Natural Gas after all), the amounts in place known to exist are truly staggering, as in the history of the world less than 1% has ever been recovered to date.

[bestintxas]

“When you consider how far we have advanced technologically in the past 85 years, there is no reason not to believe that fossil fuels won’t be replaced naturally.......or the energy output from them improved upon tremendously.”

No argument, as long as we are talking about hundreds of years.

The dirty little secret is that, yes, we have advanced technologically in the past 85 years but guess what, that technology has been in the exploitation of hydrocarbons, which is a great gift God has bestowed, NATURALLY, to Man.

They don’t call it NATURAL gas for nothing.

I have been in the petroleum industry for almost half that time and I believe I know what I am talking about.

[Olog-hai]

Hmm. Record-breaking snowstorms in November 2014 and they still blather on about this.