Thursday, November 9, 2017

Wind and Solar Power Advance, but Carbon Refuses to Retreat

All but one of the world’s nations — the United States — have enlisted in the cause, making concrete commitments to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. However, the price of wind turbines and solar panels is plummeting, putting renewable energy within the reach of meager budgets in the developing world. This should make things more optimistic for environmental reparations and use of clean energy right. Unfortunately the of CO2 spewed into the air for each unit of energy consumed offers some bad news: It has not budged since the meeting in Kyoto 20 years ago. Even among the highly industrialized nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the carbon intensity of energy has declined by a paltry 4 percent since then, according to the International Energy Agency. Apparently our country would like to literally burn all the profits they can out of oil.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/climate-carbon-renewables.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness-economy&action=click&contentCollection=economy&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

2 comments:

  1. It seems like there is so much research being done on efficient resources. But the US is having a hard time making efforts to move away from using fossil fuels. For example, the battery operated cars are efficient but there are many downfalls. There are many more gas stations in the US than battery changing stations. So why not just drive a car that uses gas?

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  2. Now we have a political situation that affects the economics of this. The US has a strong business lobby that doesn't really want to take measures to protect the environment because it could raise business production costs. The Trum administration is on the side of these businesses, keeping us out of the international environment protection treaties.

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