Originally Posted by
Lurker27
There is a power choreography problem, and there is a storage problem, but we're well below the point of diminishing returns on solar installs. Cost, yes, no argument there for the marginal install case, but that doesn't mean it's a fully viable replacement technology. We should do more of it, but also continue to develop alternative base load.
Obviously you aren't going to fully replace base load with wind, but it's much better to have flexible base load at low cost and carbon consumption (ng turbine) so that you can gracefully meet demand conditions.
The single biggest factor in reducing carbon output in America has been fracking causing reduction in coal base load.
At any rate there is zero chance the world writ large meets carbon emission targets so it's not unreasonable to write the benefit of lowering carbon emission to zero, in the full knowledge that some other geoengineering solution will be deployed if and when things get bad. I don't relish this position, but it's been obvious for a decade at the very least and implicitly part of the public discussion since at least "freakonomics".
Obviously that's less ideal than global action twenty years ago to convert to nuclear, which is the only reasonable alternate history for agw, but it's over now. If fossil fuels bring more people out of poverty more rapidly (global scale) they can absolutely be net positive.
Now, if the argument is that incentives for new industries in the Midwest is good from a demand side economics perspective, I absolutely agree.