“Renewables are cheap, and everyone wants them, but there are huge gaps in our ability to get it done” – Watts Up With That?

Essays by Eric Worrall

As Bill McKibben is quoted, renewables are so cheap, people have to be forced to use them.

From climate promotion to climate enforcement

The Inflation Reduction Act finally provided an opportunity for widespread change.

Via Bill McKibben
December 27, 2022

There are about one hundred and forty million homes in the United States. … It took centuries to build all those houses out of wood, brick, steel and concrete, but if we take the climate crisis seriously, we only have a few years to rebuild them.

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Fear is not that nothing is done; won’t be enough to accomplish, because responding to the climate challenge, essentially, means changing everything. And in America that includes changing one hundred and forty million homes. E…”The market won’t do it alone, because the market for goods and labor—the market for machines—is the market for fossil fuels,” said Matusiak. “My house has a gas pipeline. If my heater breaks, or my water heater breaks, the contractor won’t sell me a heat pump, even though it’s better. They will sell me a replacement for what I already have.”

The scale of the mission somehow looks bigger the closer you get to the ground. Consider Boston, home of Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Rising Sun Movement who pushed the Green New Deal that was instrumental in getting the IRA through, … In 2020, Massachusetts voted for Biden. with a ratio of more than two to one; Boston did almost five to one. … even building new construction to convert to electricity was an experiment—as attorney general, Healey had no choice but to rule that state law forbids town ordinances gas connections in new buildings. …

A Massachusetts-based renewable energy engineer pointed out to me that construction of the state’s first large offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind, is just beginning, after a decade of struggling with the bureaucracy. power, and when completed, it will deliver less than half a gigawatt of power. “Can Massachusetts really build the 25 needed offshore wind farms in a decade?‘ he asked. At least Massachusetts has anything else. Sam Evans-Brown, head of Clean Energy New Hampshire, says that his state only has 5% of the installed solar capacity that Massachusetts has. “Renewables are cheap and everyone wants them, but there are huge gaps in our ability to get it done,” he told me.

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However, beyond inertia, vested interest is also a challenge. Based on World Bank data analysis conducted earlier this year, The oil industry has averaged the equivalent of $3.2 billion, adjusted for inflation, in profits per day for the past 50 years. It’s a both a prize worth fighting for and a battle chest large enough to make the fight long and intense.

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Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/from-climate-exhortation-to-climate-execution

McKibben wants us to believe that renewables are so cheap that we are struggling to muster the resources to build them? That green advocates should fight for a share of the $3.2 billion/day the oil companies make?

Bill McKibben wants us to believe that plumbers and electricians are shielding us from cheaper options because – I don’t know, because they’re too lazy to ask landlords to agree to overtime? Because they don’t think homeowners might not want to discuss options for saving money?

McKibben’s claim that the market will not accept the cheaper option on its own, which people must be forced to, is absurd. My gas and electricians make recommendations when I call them, I will always choose the cheaper option if available, if I have the cash and if there are no downsides.

For example, I switched to LED bulbs years ago on the advice of an electrician, even though they are more expensive than incandescent bulbs. I don’t like the more toxic compact fluorescent energy-saving bulbs, because I once damaged three bulbs in a row in a confined space, trying to fit one bulb into an awkward joint. Then I realized I was exposed enough to the mercury from that particular green technology. But LED bulbs, they just work.

To be fair, I’m not about to throw away my gas stove. I run my gas stove on bottled gas, so it’s definitely more expensive than an electric one. But my gas stove has one big advantage over an electric one – it still works, even during a power outage.

In this new age of renewable energy so cheap that no one can muster the resources to build it, even with piles of government cash, the risk of power outages is becoming an increasingly common problem. serious.