G7 Vows To Phase Out Fossil Fuels By 2100 298
Taco Cowboy writes: The G7 group of countries has issued a pledge that they will phase out fossil fuels by the end of this century. The announcement was warmly welcomed by environmental groups. "Angela Merkel took the G7 by the scruff of the neck," said Ruth Davis a political advisor to Greenpeace and a senior associate at E3G. "Politically, the most important shift is that chancellor Merkel is back on climate change. This was not an easy negotiation. She did not have to put climate change on the agenda here. But she did," Davis said. The G7 plege includes a goal proposed by the EU to cut emissions 60% on 2010 levels by 2050, with full decarbonisation by 2100.
It will be too late. It probably already is (Score:3, Insightful)
If wee keep burning shit at the current rate for another 10 or 20 years, we are game, say the most recent researches.
But hey, none of those politicians will be in office by then, not even halfway or a quarter of the way by then, so who cares!
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None of them will be alive by then, most probably.
Re:It will be too late. It probably already is (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm going to invent a new word called draggling, and that is how they will extract even more from the ground. Fracking is a stupid word, too, and we never heard of it until they "ran out" of oil the first time.
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So they're going to phase out fossil fuels by the end of the century, by burning it all before the end of the century...
Duh!! New technology doesn't replace old technology until it does something better than the previous. The government can *try*
to force it by taxing the old technology, outlawing it, etc.. but it only works halfway.
To make matters worse most "green" technology requires a ton of fossil fuels to make and will be almost impossible to produce once
oil is gone. I'm actually worried about this more than the loss of gasoline. It's not just the energy required to build stuff but also there
are a ton of products b
Re:It will be too late. It probably already is (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah - We can't even get them to follow through on two year plans. The idea of following through on an 80+ year plan is laughable.
Almost as laughable as those applauding this as real change.
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Funny I was always told that "cheap" oil would be gone by 2050. Which certainly will be true. After that it will have to come from far more expensive methods, which means a minimum of $150 a barrell.
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which means a minimum of $150 a barrel.
Except it doesn't. There are immense amounts of oil in shale, and tar sands. Extraction costs are below $50 a barrel, and falling. The era of expensive oil is over.
There are plenty of good reasons to stop burning fossil fuels. Cost is not one of them.
Re:It will be too late. It probably already is (Score:4, Insightful)
carbon dioxide is the most important gas on the planet, without it there would be no plants.
And water is the most important liquid on the planet, without it there would be no plants or animals. But that doesn't mean too much won't drown you.
Quoting Paracelsus, "dosis facit venenum" ("The dose makes the poison.")
Right (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see if anyone remembers what the G7 was by then.
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While the G7 represents half the wealth, it is only 15% of the population of this planet.
Who is going to make the other 85% stop using fossil fuels?
As long as it is economical to burn, someone will do it.
Noocular (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean Germany will start building nukes instead of coal plants again?
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Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
No, not really (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear power in Germany
In 2001 a law was passed requiring the closing of all nuclear power plants within a period of 32 years. The shutdown time was extended to 2040 by a new government in 2010. After the Fukushima incident, the law was abrogated and the end of nuclear energy was set to 2022
Renewable energy in Germany
Net-generation from renewable energy sources in the German electricity sector has increased from 6.3% in 2000 to about 30% in 2014
Renewable sources:
40% - wind
30% - biomass
16% - solar
14% - hydropower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
There are countries which are way ahead of Germany in this regard, for instance, Sweden.
Re:No, not really (Score:4, Insightful)
$0.3625/ KWH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
Sounds like a god damn brilliant plan to me. Triple the cost of electricity and then no one will want to buy an Electric Vehicle or use it for anything else.
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The headline figure I'd misleading. A lot of people either have solar or get subsided electricity. Electric cars are still quite attractive. Remember that Germany is a socialist country, particularly compared to the US. They actually like socialism and doing something for the collective good. See the other story on free education, for example.
Re:No, not really (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what the greatest collective good I know is ?
It's having an economy with enough demand for labor that people can get jobs and earn their own way without relying on forced charity from their neighbors.
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Too bad the "greatest" or best possible anything is always a theoretical construct that's unattainable in the real world.
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You are of course wrong. What you mean to say is that perfect anything is an impossibility.
When I say "The Greatest I know", I am referring to a member of the finite set of things that I know.
The same holds true for any other greatest, where it always refers to the element in the universe of discussion that has the highest rank.
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$0.3625/ KWH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E [wikipedia.org]...
Sounds like a god damn brilliant plan to me. Triple the cost of electricity and then no one will want to buy an Electric Vehicle or use it for anything else.
Except gasoline/diesel is much more expensive in Europe (take your per-gallon price, change the currency symbol to Euro, and change "gallon" to "litre" and you'll get the idea of prices).
Basically, an EV went from a "you're an idiot not to" to "damn, where am I gonna stuff all the money I'm saving".
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Let Me understand this.
The government robs you on the cost of gas.
Then they rob you on the cost of your electricity
Your result, You're ecstatic because you got to spend lots of upfront money so they could rob you a little less ?
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You have been just as dirty as China for about a century, but with a much smaller population.
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the German people like it that way
All of them, or just the ones who are in power?
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One of my friends was so early adopter of the hybrid cars that he got one as soon as possible, with considerable premium paid - because it got transported to Germany by plane. He was so proud touting his environmental friendliness until I asked him to compute when his car will save enough gas/pollution to save extra things which had to be used to transport it by plane instead by ship...
Another, living in quite cloudy/rainy part of Germany, installed solar panels on his roof to save environment. This was in
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That last paragraph is one big oxymoron.
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You would even be surprised to find out how many wind farms have been slowly going up too. I watch the giant blades heading out on the highway north of my little town.
The worlds' largest offshore windfarm is in the UK. Its about to be dwarfed by one currently being constructed which is 4 times the size which is being built just a few miles off the east coast of the UK. In my county in England there is not a single place you can stand and not see a wind turbine. The USA has a long way to go.
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In my county in England there is not a single place you can stand and not see a wind turbine.
you say this as if its a good thing. When I am out enjoying nature, I cant stand to see power lines let alone noisy wind turbines.
Re: No, not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus Christ man why do you tolerate it ?
You have a labor force participation rate in the 50% range (guessing you are English). You are being robbed left and right by people that tell you they know what's good for you, why aren't you doing something about it instead of wishing bad fortune on others ?
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Jesus Christ man why do you tolerate it ?
Because the £8Billion the British motorist pays more in tax than is spent on the roads goes on funding the NHS so we don't end up in the situation that you have in the USA where the prime cause of bankruptcy is medical bills and people die from really easy to treat shit because they can't afford treatment.
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Oh hi again. Ad Hominem this time ? I suppose I should be honored I rate a stalker.
partially Incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Renewable production reached 30% roughly, but 1) that is gross production not usage AFAIK, and 2) this is only electricity production. Does not count heating (40% energy usage). It is inreality more like11% , a feat, but shows that fully removing CO2 geenrating method a far flung goal:
You should not use energy==electricity as it is misleading. Always precise what you are speaking of. In the case of the 27% it is gross electricity generation.
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Re:No, not really (Score:4, Informative)
Not really difficult, given four times the population and way more sun (the most southern German towns are on the same latitude as Seattle).
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By then energy storage will almost certainly make nuclear and fossil fuels unnecessary.
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No, they will just get France to build them instead.
While I'm sure France has a very competent nuclear industry, you would have thought that if you were concerned about the safety of nuclear reactors, throwing the problem over the fence and having the neighbour run them is not the most logical solution.
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Of course not. Coal is just a bridge fuel until solar works 24/7 365.
"We put the goal so far out that we will be out of office and retired when we don't do it.
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Re:Noocular (Score:4, Informative)
Uranium is a mineral deposit, not fossilised material (which is formed from dead organisms).
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The article says they will retire all fossil fuels. Nuclear fuel is also fossil.
Actually its renewable
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/fasbre.html
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Oh if you don't like that one, theres' the Thorium breeder.
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You could expect Germany to phase out lignite before they phase out coal. There is a wide-spread public resistance against it and it is likely that it will be taxed out of being profitable.
Many "blocks" (lignite-burning power plants) will reach end-of-life in the next one or two decades anyway so if power companies would want to continue burning lignite then they would have to invest heavily in new plants and that wouldn't be a good financial decision.
By then... (Score:4, Insightful)
There won't be much left to burn anyways..
Not that ambitious (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree, by 2100, the world will have stopped using fossil fuels without this statement. If they had any courage, or ambition, they would have said 2050. Even that wouldn't take too massive of a push. If you wanted to go on an JFK'esque level, you would shoot for 2030. That would be revolutionary.
Pray tell, what does that massive push look like, and be sure to list all the caveats that go with it.
The announcement was "warmly" welcomed (Score:5, Insightful)
I see what you did there, Taco.
Anyways I seriously doubt we'll be burning fossil fuels as our primary energy source in 2100. This is probably like politicians in 1880 signing a pledge to limit horse emissions before our cities drown in horse poop (a real concern at the time). Nice gesture but rendered moot by later technological advances.
I fully support this (Score:5, Funny)
I swear that, by 2100, I will not use any fossil fuels.
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You may be the fossil fuel though...
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A bunch of politicians who won't be around... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most constitutions in force today were written more than 85 years ago and have only seen minor adjustments. That's an example of a political long term commitment. So it can be done.
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If your country can't plan more than 10 years into the future, you are screwed.
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Most only plan for the next election, which in my country is a mere 3 years.
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A bunch of politicians who won't be around in 10 years
Well, we can always dream about that anyway....
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Completely irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Second law of politics: most resolutions that claim future action within the current election cycle can also be safely ignored.
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Wind and Solar are already lightyears cheaper than fossil fuels in remote areas like islands and the third world. Remember how we skipped providing land lines to Africa, and everyone there got cell phones instead? How Facebook has a mobile app specifically directed towards those mobile users in Africa? Solar and Wind will come from the bottom up (Africa, SE Asia) and from the top down (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden). As capacity increases and price decreases you'll start seeing middle-tier economies like the
Feel good "commit nothing" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pretty much any commitment for 2030-2100 is so far in the future that it is utterly worthless
That is of course the worry, but I think in some ways this represents a real change, if only symbolically. Just think back a few years, when climate change first grabbed headlines, and all industrialized countries went "Oh no, we will not even discuss this, because it might hurt our short term profits". Now, at least, it is a goal of sorts, and you get taken seriously if you suggest ways to move away from fossil fuels; this is not a small thing. It is not ambitious enough, clearly, but I think it will now b
Re:Feel good "commit nothing" (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely agree. When I started my career in engineer I quickly discovered the folly of the manager who keeps shooting for the stars. Basically everyone who knows that the target is completely unrealistic just gives up and starts planning for how to deal with the failure rather than move the project forward. The key is to have bite sized goals that people can achieve if pushed, then leaning on them to get there.
If climate prediction are right, then we are pretty screwed anyway. I think it is time we just figured out some goals that could actually be met (such as nations agreeing to bring as much renewables online as the existing grids can manage) and chug away at those. If we start meeting a few of them, we might actually be able to get a bit of enthusiasm about doing some bigger stuff.
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2030 commitment implies 2020 commitment
If you actually plan to meet your stated goal yes. If the objective is to score some political points by saying something that sounds good, than it means no such thing. 5 years out and then 10 years out, then 20 years out, when opponents are making noise that threatens you political you just tell supports that "there is still plenty of time, and with the economy....now isn't the time to...."
Empty promise (Score:3)
You mean run out (Score:2)
Year 2100 is (Score:2)
Equivalently, "Fuck you".
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past the life expectancy of anyone we could conceivably give a crap about.
I'll be long dead in 2100.
My son will be dead in 2100.
His children though, my grandchildren, may very well be alive in 2100.
Their children, my grand-grandchildren, are very likely to be alive in 2100
My nieces and nephews, born between 2009 and 2015, may very well be alive in 2100.
And conceivable for you or not, but I do "give a crap" about them, even the ones not born yet.
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past the life expectancy of anyone we could conceivably give a crap about.
Equivalently, "Fuck you".
Yeah, it is basically saying we'll enjoy ourselves and the next generation can deal with the mess. Pretty much sums up the boomer generation to be honest.
85 years from now eh? (Score:4, Informative)
And who cares what the G anything said so much as 10 years ago? This more worthless than when China said they'd cut the GROWTH of their PROJECTED CO2 increase and that they would be the only ones permitted to determine if they were in compliance with their non-binding agreement.
85 fucking years? Who here thinks that anyone will even remember what the G anything said in 85 years? None of it is binding. It is all gentleman's agreements.
Which means you can rebut any of them with this argument "well you see... ehm... I wanted to do that... so... I ehm... I just did."
Totally valid response by any G anything member to any other G anything member about whatever.
So... allow me to calculate the number of shits anyone should give about this little announcement... carry the one... divide by zero... and... yes, that works out to exactly zero shits.
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You're apparently not familiar with give-o-fuck mathematics.
What do they teach you kids these days?
Reminds me of League of Nations (Score:2)
I recall at the end of World War I (then called The Great War) that the great nations of the world agreed to eliminate all future wars by forming an international body to formally instill world peace. It was called the League of Nations. But then came the second war to end all ways (WWII) some 30 or so years later. So the present day United Nations was formed so the world wouldn't destroy itself and, while we're at it, so we could eliminate pestilence, famine and plague as well (along with war).
Not quite twenty years, tho you could split hairs (Score:2)
Been saying this for years (Score:2)
The writing's been on the wall for decades now and the process has been visible to anyone who cared to look - fossil fuel sources are being phased out entirely long term. The only thing objectionable about this story is the idea that Merkel could claim any sort of responsibility for it [spiegel.de].
Why not 2025? (Score:2)
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"Coal is good for humanity"
Inaction is a political issue.
Actually much sooner (Score:2)
We will definitely be off fossil fuel by 2100, because we will be out of coal in 23 years http://www.dailykos.com/story/... [dailykos.com] out of oil in 50 years http://www.cnbc.com/id/4222481... [cnbc.com] and out of natural gas in 87 at the current rate http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... [eia.gov] (much faster assuming consumption goes up when we run out of oil and coal)
The world is going to become a very different place, in our lifetime. OK so we all have electric cars, but how do you travel to Europe without oil ? In an electric plane ?
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Actually that is the reason why I think we should keep oil for precisely these applications. It seems like there are applications where fossil fuel can be replaced by renwable energies and places where it can not.
Instead of treating fossil fuel like a commodity, maybe we should treat it like "an endangered resource".
We pretty much have to do this (Score:2)
Instead we'll start mining the asteroids and gas giants for methane.
plastics (Score:2)
Wind turbines are made out of plastic. What are they planning to make them out of if not fossil fuels? Will they switch to making turbines out of wood?
Angela Merkel, wrangler of unicorns (Score:2)
Currently she is building the world's largest strip mine, for brown coal, as a replacement for the nuclear plants that she closed to assuage the Greens after Fukushima. So at some point between now and 2100 a new and magical energy source will appear to make all that coal unnecessary without the use of nuclear?
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So at some point between now and 2100 a new and magical energy source will appear
If the past 3 centuries are any kind of precedent then yes, we'll probably find several.
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Sure, but will the flat-earth lobby be any more inclined to let us have them?
Thank goodness ... (Score:2)
What is the point.... (Score:2)
In 85 years, I could all but guarantee that practically everyone will have forgotten that they ever "vowed" to do this, and in reality, this so-called promise is a just a whole lot of hot air.
China not part of G7 (Score:4, Informative)
China and India's road map are the important ones for the world, G7 doesn't matter
2100? Hmmmm. It will never work. (Score:2)
The ONLY way to solve this is for the west to slowly increase a tax on consumed goods (both local-made and imported) based on where it and sub-parts come from.
The numbers should be based on sats that show
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You surely meant Moldavia. Slovakia is a bit far from Russia with minimal russian population.
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no, but we'll start working on it right after fossil fuels are completely phased out.
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Some forms of cancer are already treatable to the point where, like HIV, they are considered chronical instead of terminal. Getting there!
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Yes.
Depending on which report you read, oil, coal, gas etc. may have at least 100 years left. It depends on fracking and shale gas and all kinds of things that we aren't using at the moment but about 100 years isn't seen as a major obstacle - it'll be harder and go up in price and then no doubt it will be the end of it not long after, but it'll still be around until then.
We've found an awful lot of deposits that weren't viable 50 years ago to be viable now, based on the cost of the oil they'll give, and th
Re:Here's what Germany should really do (Score:4, Insightful)
start paying for your oil in Euro
Speaking of things that won't be around in 2100...
Re:Replace with what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't usually reply to ACs but this level of stupid needs a rap on the knuckles. You do realise that covering a single digit portion of the uninhabited sections of the Sahara desert with inefficient old PV cells could supply enough power to satisfy the needs of the European Union right? We haven't even BEGUN to tap into the potential of renewables.
And before you start paddling your keyboard about how the sun goes down at night, rap yourself on the knuckles and think.
Re:Replace with what? (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that even the dessert is a complex ecosystem of micro flora and fona that would be greatly harmed by being permanently covered in solar cells. You must also be aware that transmission loss with electricity is well HUGE. So you are discussing a large ecosystem altering deployment of solar cells, much larger than anticipated, in place where there is nobody to maintain them. Sounds like a pretty stupid plan.
Right up there with daming another river or installing another giant bird migration path altering wind farm. Those are okay in Europe because the Europeans already killed all the birds in past centuries but they kinda suck in the states.
Someday folks are going to wake up and realize their is more to protecting our the environment than CO2 emissions. All the greenies want to do is run around and spoil the last few unspoiled places are earth to stand up their renewables; personally I'd rather burn a little more oil.
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You do realize that even the dessert is a complex ecosystem of micro flora and fona that would be greatly harmed by being permanently covered in solar cells.
The Sahara desert was a jungle a few thousand years ago, for all we know it could be a jungle again in a few thousand years, and what little life exists there won't enjoy that much either. Following your train of thought to its logical conclusion people may as well just curl up into a ball and die for fear of harming anything anywhere. Feel free to do so but don't expect many to follow suit. And again, we're talking about an insignificant percentage of the desert, used to illustrate a point - there's no sho