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<\/a>\r\n\r\nUtility scare tactics that no coal means pipelines are so much hot air.\r\nScare tactics that no pipelines would mean LNG trains are burnt up by solar power.\r\nStop pipelnes or fracking and stop the other and LNG export along with it.\r\nAnd we’re winning!\r\n\r\nTom Randall, Bloomberg, 6 April 2016,\r\n\r\nWind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels: Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1.<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\nWind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\nWhile two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal\r\ntriggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have\r\nbeen thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and\r\nis now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nOne reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to\r\nproduce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended\r\nwith winning bids from companies that promised to produce\r\nelectricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the\r\nworld, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for\r\nBloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n“We’re in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future,”\r\nLiebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New\r\nYork on Tuesday. “Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at\r\nall.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nA major traditional media outfit finally gets it about the exponential\r\ngrowth of solar and wind power.\r\n \r\n\r\nAn industry that keeps doubling in size<\/strong>\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\nJust since 2000, the amount of global electricity produced by solar\r\npower has doubled seven times over. Even wind power, which was\r\nalready established, doubled four times over the same period. For\r\nthe first time, the two forms of renewable energy are beginning to\r\ncompete head-to-head on price and annual investment.\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe Bloomberg article goes on about rich countries phasing out coal first.\r\nScotland, whose James Watt two centuries ago\r\ninvented the type of steam engine that made the\r\ncoal boom possible, that Scotland\r\njust turned off its last coal-fired power plant<\/a>.\r\nIn the U.S., the most notorious worker-exploiting coal baron, Donald Blankenship,\r\nwas sentenced to a year in prison and a fine<\/a>.\r\nBelgium \r\nalso just shut down its last coal-fired plant<\/a>,\r\nand Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania already did that,\r\nwhile Portugal, Austria, Finland, and the rest of the U.K. plan to do the same by 2025.\r\nEven China is shifting from coal to sun and wind, while our own state of Georgia is the fastest-growing U.S. solar market<\/a>.\r\n \r\nThen the Bloomberg article goes into “U.S. oil patch heads to the insolvency zone”:\r\n \r\nOil and gas woes are driven less by renewables than by a mismatch of\r\ntoo much supply and too little demand. But with renewable energy\r\nexpanding at record rates and with more efficient\r\ncars—including all-electric vehicles—siphoning off oil\r\nprofits at the margins, the fossil-fuel insolvency zone is only\r\ngoing to get more crowded, according to BNEF. Natural gas will still\r\nbe needed for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,\r\nbut even that will change as utility-scale batteries grow cheaper.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nNo natural gas won’t be needed.\r\nStanford Prof. Mark Z. Jacobson\r\n\r\nalready spelled out<\/a> how to get from here\r\nto first the electric grid and then everything else (heating, cooling, and transportation) converted entirely to sun, wind, and water power and nothing else.\r\nJacobson’s early stage projections are exactly what Bloomberg attests is already happening in sun and wind power: doubling every two years in the case of solar power.\r\n \r\nAnd an independent study shows that\r\n\r\nadding high voltage DC power lines between regions can balance sun and wind power<\/a> with no need for backups.\r\n \r\nThe best minds in energy keep underestimating what solar and wind\r\ncan do. Since 2000, the International Energy Agency has raised its\r\nlong-term solar forecast 14 times and its wind forecast five times.\r\nEvery time global wind power doubles, there’s a 19 percent drop in\r\ncost, according to BNEF, and every time solar power doubles, costs\r\nfall 24 percent.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nAnd you’re still underestimating what’s happening, Bloomberg.\r\nAs\r\n\r\nI predicted back in 2013, and then discovered then-FERC-Chair Jon Wellinghoff had predicted the same thing<\/a>, within ten years from then most U.S. electric grid power will come from solar power.\r\nThat’s by 2023, now only 7 years away.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThat prediction was based on solar power doubling every two years,\r\nand as\r\n\r\nFERC’s own figures and those from the U.S. Energy Information Agency attest<\/a>,\r\nand as also graphed in this Bloomberg article, that doubling has continued to happen.\r\nThat’s\r\n\r\nfar<\/em> faster than the rosiest projections for fracked methane<\/a>.\r\n \r\nTry to catch up, Bloomberg!\r\nGoldman Sachs\r\n\r\ncaught on last November<\/a>:\r\n \r\nNew wind turbines and solar panels worldwide will provide more\r\nenergy over the next five years than U.S. shale-oil production has\r\nover the past five, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\nThat was after in September Citi GPS agreeed fixing climate change is profitable<\/a>,\r\nbecause of sun, wind, and electric vehicle opportunities,\r\nplus saving tens of trillions of dollars.\r\n \r\nWhat the Bloomberg writer didn’t do was project ahead the effect of solar doubling faster than wind.\r\nAs you can see in my projection the gold solar line passes the red wind line around 2022, before solar passes everything by 2023.\r\n \r\nBloomberg writer also didn’t look at what happens if solar grows even faster.\r\nAnswer: solar wins over everything else even faster; see for example the 100% doubling-annually grey solar line.\r\n \r\nAnd another thing the Bloomberg writer didn’t do was factor in what happens when first coal, and then oil and gas crater, like his graphs do show coal already doing, followed soon by oil and gas.\r\nTo be fair, I didn’t project that out, either, but Jacobson did.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe result of the collapse of fossil fuels underneath the growth of solar and wind power is fast conversion of everything<\/em> to\r\nclean solar, wind, and water power:\r\n25% by 2025, 80% by 2030, and 90% by 2035.\r\n \r\nPlus less overall energy usage because generating electricity from sun and wind\r\nis much more efficient than burning things to boil water.\r\nWhich with the continuing drop in solar prices means lower electric bills and more money in everyone’s pockets.\r\nAnd better health through less pollution, which also means lower medical bills.\r\n \r\nOh, and if we get on with it and quit wasting money on $3 billion boondoggles liike Sabal Trail and all its ugly stepsister pipelines LNG export operations and stepchild power plants<\/a>,\r\nwe can greatly slow climate change, keeping the planet habitable,\r\nand maybe even keeping Miami from being underwater.\r\n \r\nThe Bloomberg ends with a video featuring none other than Tom Fanning,\r\nCEO of Southern Company, the famous recent convert to solar power as of May 2015,\r\ncausing Georgia Power to sell solar power as of July 2015<\/a>.\r\nIn the video Fanning touts SO’s all of the above policy, but he doesn’t mention that until last year he always listed solar dead last, saying “maybe by the end of the decade”. If Tom Fanning can see the sunlight, anybody can!\r\n \r\n\r\nSolar power will win like the Internet did<\/a>:\r\nso fast your jaw will drop, and afterwards it will all seem normal.\r\n \r\nOur task is to stop stupid 20th century fossil fuel plays before they destroy any more of our private property, countryside, and rivers.\r\nYou can \r\nask your federal representative to ask GAO to investigate FERC and rubberstamps like Sabal Trail<\/a>.\r\nDon’t forget to ask your county commission and city government to call in the U.S. Army Corps Engineers to investigate what Sabal didn’t tell FERC,\r\nlike Hamilton and Suwannee Counties, Florida just did<\/a>.\r\n \r\n \r\nOne down, one to go!\r\nThe bigger they are, the harder they fall.\r\nLet the sun rise!\r\n \r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guess what’s really inevitable, pipeline companies? Solar and wind power. Utility scare tactics that no coal means pipelines are so much hot air. Scare tactics that no pipelines would mean LNG trains are burnt up by solar power. Stop pipelnes or fracking and stop the other and LNG export along with it. And we’re winning! […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216,14,18,6124,559,6687,24,36],"tags":[3906,8689,8753,8704,8701,8708,6303,7622,8702,12,7,562,8782,8381,6076,6597,8714,108,6966,6339,6,8716],"class_list":["post-16172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-oil","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","category-wind","tag-bloomberg","tag-citi-gps","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-kinder-morgan","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-oil","tag-palmetto-pipeline","tag-pipeline","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-spectra-energy","tag-tom-fanning","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4cQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16172"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16177,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16172\/revisions\/16177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\r\n
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<\/a>\r\nAnd thank those of your state legislators who just voted 34 aye to 128 nay\r\nin a historic refusal of river-drilling easements for Sabal Trail<\/a>.\r\nPlus they also voted in an 18-month moratorium against petroleum products pipelines,\r\nwhich caused Kinder Morgan to suspend its Palmetto pipeline.\r\n