CLIMATE-SCIENCE DEBATES ASIDE: From my perspective, firstly the problem is with the if not billions, then hundreds-of-millions of machines worldwide engineered to take in cool sweet air and in-turn exhaust-out hot/acidic gases.

So, if for example a densely populated urban area like Manhattan or Hong Kong had an all-electric transportation infrastructure; I can imagine the citizens there would energetically oppose any proposals that threatened going back to cars, trucks, trains and/or buses that burned fossil fuels.

You're a troll aren't you? Or are you a coward that can't come clean? Do tell...your stats don't agree with the info I've heard and read from facts!? Who are you Instant Runoff?????

Germany only produced 6.1% of total electricity production by Solar in 2014. in 2013 Germany's electricity generation was 66% NG & Coal, mostly dirty lignite with some chopped down forests mixed in to greenwash the filthy coal, 15% Nuclear, 4.3% Hydro and a whopping 14% combined Geothermal, Solar, Wind, Tidal. i.e. They still produced more from their "long abandoned" Nuclear than their massively subsidized Solar & Wind.

And now Germany's Solar PV installation rate is now on a steep decline. 7.6 GW in 2012, 3.3 in 2013, 1.9 in 2014. So much for solar energy.

Germany, after 25 yrs of all out effort on wind & solar, has the 2nd highest emissions per kwh generated in Europe. 9X Nuclear France. 5X Nuclear Ontario. And they have the 2nd highest electricity prices in Europe. Double that of nuclear France. And now they are building giant dirt-burning Coal power plants by the dozens. Why aren't they building Wind & Solar instead?

Even little old Ontario achieved 62% nuclear with It's own indigenous CANDU PHWR natural uranium, nuclear. Whereas the biggest economy in the USA, high tech haven, Thom's poster boy, California, after 30 yrs of all out effort on Solar has only achieved 3.5% & 4.4% with Wind of its electricity consumption. Some impressive that is.

Germany is doing just fine with conversion to renewables.

Germany has a representative government ....... The United States does not!

Thom, why did you act in such an immature fashion with Paul Dreissen? Do you really think being rude and agressive towards your guests, continually interrupting them and misrepresenting what they are saying, you will win converts to your point of view? Note how polite Mr. Driessen was, no matter how you goaded him and called him names. Shame.

Mr. Driessen should have asked you, "why should YOU, Thom, not be thrown in prison for misleading (I won't say lying since you might actually believe what you are saying) the American public about climate change and promoting policies that kill millions of Africans, destroys hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US, and leads to massive increases in electricy costs, mostly affecting the poor of America?

The answer, of course, is that you live in America, not Saudi Arabia, and so you enjoy freedom of expression, even when the point of view being expressed is not one others agree with. Voltaire once said “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” Do you agree with Voltaire? Or are you siding with the princes of Saudi Arabia on this?

Here is an except from our press release http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/pope-on-wrong-side-of-history-on-climate-change---global-warming-policies-are-the-real-threat-to-the-worlds-most-vulnerable-people-529135681.html:

"The international focus on reducing CO2 emissions makes it more difficult for developing countries to finance the construction of vitally-needed power plants," said Leyland. "For example, South Africa was able to secure a $3.9 billion loan in 2010 to build the Medupi coal-fired power station only because developing nation representatives on the World Bank board voted for approval. The U.S. and four European nation members abstained from approval because of their worries about climate change. They seemed to want South Africans to use wind and solar power instead, sources too expensive for widespread use even in the wealthiest nations."

The next day we issued the press release at http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/pope-un-sabotaging-development-goals-with-climate-mitigation-focus-529547701.html

I'd be happy to debate you any time, Thom. Game?

--
Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (Mech.)
Executive Director,
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

www.climatescienceinternational.org
613-728-9200

No I'm saying Banking, Oil & Coal interests are paying Greenpeace and thousands (yep I said thousands) of other ENGOs to kneecap & blockade the only feasible alternative to their energy hegemony, which is of course Nuclear Energy. And using these same ENGOs to promote nutty scams, like wind & solar, hydrogen, ethanol, biomass, geothermal etc that have no chance of replacing Fossil Fuels, but they redirect energy, capital, manpower & resources and effort from realistic solutions. That's called Bait-And-Switch, and it is the oldest trick in the book and it just works SO-OOOO Well. One good example of how successful it has been:

Way back in 1979 the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island financed a vicious campaign against the Nuclear power plant being built there. And in their large newspaper ads and bumper stickers, the slogan was SOLAR NOT NUCLEAR. Most of Long Island's electricity came from burning oil. Now 35 years later they are almost up to 1% solar electricity. No nuclear. Some success for the environment that was – a success for Big Oil. As I said: Bait-And-Switch.

http://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-part-18-an-oldie-but-a-goodie-oil-...

In fact Wind & Solar cause Fossil Fuel Lock-In, because Wind & Solar can only exist in a fossil fuel dominated world economy.

Greenpeace refuses to reveal the sources of their funding but you can find from other sites that they get donations from Big Oil/Bankster lobby groups like various Rockefeller foundations. Mostly though they get giant personal donations, which are revealed on IRS990 forms.

NRDC a rabidly anti-nuclear ENGO is a good example. It has multi-million$ annual donations including an $11M personal donation in 2013. Mysteriouslessly they have the donor names left blank in the required IRS form field, as usual for these anti-nuclear ENGOs. And salaries of 17 directors of more than $161k per year with the president getting $423k/yr. With a Rockefeller Bankster/Oil Baron on the (unpaid) executive. And of course donations from Rockefeller foundations. What rich charitable individual would give $11M to some Schlock ENGO with a bunch of super well paid executive, when he could give that money to a Real Charity, i.e. to help sick kids, cancer research, child hunger, homelessness etc. Obviously they are giving them money because they are getting payback. Return on Investment. And unlike media campaigns or planted news stories, those investments in schlock ENGOs are classified as "charitable donations". What a scam, Big Oil lobby firms masquerading as Environmental Organizations.

http://www.nrdc.org/about/files/NRDC_990_2013.pdf

The American Environmental Movement - The American Counter-Movement Perspective:

http://ecofascism.com/review38.html

"...Here is a partial list of leading enviro-grantmaking foundation directors as drawn from the names appearing in this web-posting’s four main source documents: Nancy Packard Burnett, David Orr, Susan Packard Orr, Julie Packard, Gordon Moore, Adelaide Park Gomer, Richard Rockefeller, Stephen Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, Justin Rockefeller, Laurence Rockefeller Jr, Richard Schmidt, Nathanial Simons, Tom Steyer, Astra Wallace, Scott Wallace, Christy Wallace, Walter Hewlett, Joanie Bronfman, Susan Ford Dorsey, Sam Rawlings Walton, Laura Turner Seydell, Daniel Tishman, Frances Beinecke, Henry Paulson, Michael Bloomberg, and Anne Earhart. These people range from multi-millionaires to billionaires, and each give significant money and time to the environmentalist cause. The full list of Americans of similar wealth and ideology would be ten times as long. That list would encapsulate the nucleus of American environmentalism.

Thus, Barbara Dudley, foundation executive and Greenpeace leader, understated things when she blurted:

“It is true the environmental movement is an upper class, white movement.” ..."

The Super-rich Rent-Seekers love envirofascism because it creates shortages, and shortages = high profits.

IRV, are you saying petroleum companies are paying Greenpeace to tell us that we can get off petroleum?

The answer is "yes", but not because the so-called "Roberts Court" sides with Republicans, but because it sides with corporations against ordinary citizens.

A Falsified Myth

….

Capitalism’s critics have for eons been fearing

that Capitalism’s minions have for eons been steering

their system away from their vaunted claim

that Equitable Productivity is the name of their game.

The time has come for society’s severance

from the falsified myth to which we’ve paid reverence.

==========================================

WindyCity: "...It's never really been a question of technological feasibility..."

No in fact it is both a question of techological feasibility and economic feasibility. It is not a question of political will.

Technologically it is impossible to replace our energy supply with renewables. The available energy sources are not capable of that. The EROI - Energy Return on Energy Invested is just too low to sustain a modern civilization, as I documented here:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2015/09/why-it-flatly-impossible-wind-...

Economically the cost would quickly bankrupt the world economy. Greenpeace makes these Schlock annual reports based on wishes and dreams, ignoring all serious energy analysis. Similar reports to this have been ripped to shreds many times. Hopefully some retired power engineer with time to spare, with no pay as usual, will get around to doing a thorough critique of Greenpeace's latest piece of garbage. Unfortunately Greenpeace gets massive funding from Bankster/Oil Barons to produce these reports, all part of their bait-and-switch scam to ensure realistic alternatives to Fossil Fuels are not developed. Only gullible fools believe in renewable energy pipe dreams. With wind only contributing 3.1% of world electricity, and 0.55% of world energy in 2014. Solar 0.8% of world electricity and 0.14% of world energy in 2014. And those minute numbers come with major caveats.

Ted Trainer analyzes a similar report from 2011 parroted by the IPCC:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/09/ipcc-renewables-critique/

"...• In the key Chapter 10 most attention is given to one study which concludes that by 2050 70% of world energy could come from renewables. This study, by Greenpeace, is highly challengeable. It does not establish its claims, and it fails to discuss a number of problems confronting renewable energy..."

A whole collection of critiques of Schlock renewable energy plans similar to Greenpeace's:

https://www.google.com/search?q=renewable+critique+site%3Abravenewclimat...

Typical fundamentals of energy anlaysis that are ignored in these fantasy reports:

Assume 100% wind & solar emissions displacement. That is a blatantly false.

Ignore the abysmally low Energy Return ond Energy Invested or EROI of Wind & Solar, which in itself is a deal-breaker for wind & solar energy.

http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/

Ignore the severe geographical limitations of wind & solar. Blindly assumed you can install them anywhere, just ridiculous. There are major constraints on where you can install wind & solar and costs will escalate drastically as the low hanging fruit = where current installations are focused, are saturated. There are many areas with monsoons, rainy seasons, snowy, cold winters with little sunlight, heavily forested, poor wind resource regions, too heavily populated areas, lack of available land, sand storms, mostly cloudy weather, ecologically sensitive areas - the list is long.

Jacobson and Delucchi energy dreams are irresponsible fairy tales by Alice Friedeman, Similar to Greenpeace:

"...Jacobson & Delucchi are like religious preachers who tell people what they want to hear. Energyskeptic has hundreds of articles from peer-reviewed sources that explain why their ideas are absolutely crazy. Here are just a few of the problems off the top of my head, other critiques follow...":

http://energyskeptic.com/2015/critiques-of-mark-jacobsons-ideas-to-run-t...

Ignore curtailment costs. Wind & solar commonly peak when energy demand is low and that means energy must be dumped or wasted = energy inefficiency.

Ignore overbuild costs. You can't help but overbuild wind & solar so that you will get more energy when these unreliable sources are not meeting demand. More energy wasted, more energy inefficiency.

Ignore long distance transmission costs of wind & solar which must be oversized by 3-10X. Long distance transmission not only = energy losses = energy inefficiency and large high energy input materials but it costs more than a replacement zero CO2 nuclear power plant. At even a low $2 per kw-km. 1000km is $2000 per kw peak. For wind that's over $6000 per kw avg output, as much or more than a NPP. For Solar $10,000 to $20,000 per kw avg. output. Costs as much as two or three NPP's just for transmission. And recent 2GW HVDC Spain to France was $7 per kw-km. 3.5X those costs.

Ignore negative priced exports of surplus wind & solar generation. Added losses = higher costs.

Ignore storage costs for wind & solar. Storage is only practical for max one day's energy, and very expensive at that. To store 24 hrs electricity at a very-very low $200 per kwh is $4800 plus 20% loss is $6000 per kw, as much as a replacement NPP, that lasts for 60-100 yrs vs batteries may only last 5 yrs and have to be replaced. And wind & solar are commonly absent for weeks at a time and have large seasonal variation that does not match demand. Not properly accounted for in Greenpeace's fantasy pipedream.

Ignore decommissioning, recycling & disposal costs of Wind & Solar, which must be replaced every 12 to 25 yrs.

Ignore the cost of the 100% backup power generation and peaking fuel storage & distribution infrastructure required for wind & solar electricity generation. That will be mostly fossil, but in the Greenpeace fantasy that will be moved to mostly much more expensive Biomass & Hydrogen. More energy inefficiencies. Around a 20% round trip efficiency for Hydrogen. Maybe 10x the cost.

Ignore induced cycling inefficiency costs and thereupon increased carbon emissions associated with wind & solar generation.

Ignore grid integration costs, i.e. fast response battery banks and spinning reserve.

Ignore the short lifespan of wind turbines 12-15 yrs and solar pv of 25 yrs.

Ignore the reduction in wind resource due to increased wind farm operation and climate change will change areas with good wind resources. As is now a serious problem with Hydro, drought is greatly reducing Hydro output in many areas.

"...Large-scale exploitation of wind energy will inevitably leave an imprint in the atmosphere," says Kleidon. "Because we use so much free energy, and more every year, we'll deplete the reservoir of energy." He says this would probably show up first in wind farms themselves, where the gains expected from massive facilities just won't pan out as the energy of the Earth system is depleted..."
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/1/2011/esd-2-1-2011.html

Way under-report O&M costs for Wind & Solar and especially increased maintenance costs and reduced output in last 1/3rd of lifespan.

Ignore the much higher cost of Offshore wind which must bear the brunt of a large scale wind expansion.

Assume a continuing downward drop in Solar PV installed costs, whereas in fact that cost is stabilizing and is already beginning to trend upwards. Cost of wind & solar will rise rapidly if cheap fossil energy inputs are replaced with expensive solar & wind inputs and even more expensive energy storage.

Ignore severe problems of Biomass production, pollution and sustainability:

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2012/biomass_myth_report/

And most ridiculous of all, they assume reduced worldwide energy consumption, whereas worldwide energy consumption and world population are both rapidly increasing. In particular, Greenpeace seems to think poverty stricken developing nations will embrace there poverty and do without the basics of a modern civilization: transportation, health care, education, pensions, a diverse food supply, sufficient water, refrigeration, heat, air conditioning and lighting, law enforcement, military and other infrastructure. All of which are energy gobbling. Shameful and utter nonsense.

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/embraci...

So give up on pipe dreams. It ain't gonna happen. Even the very pro-Renewables EIA & IEA recognize that. They project modest increases, EIA puts Solar @ 0.45% of USA electricity production, Wind @ 4.5% in 2014, cleaner & greener Nuclear @ 19.5%. And projects in 2036 Solar @ 0.56%, Wind @ 5.1%. That's the wealthy USA, not developing countries that can't afford anything close to that.

Only nuclear energy is capable of replacing fossil fuels and that is proven:

Sweden and France show that China, India and the World could go 100% nuclear within 25-34 years:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/sweden-and-france-show-that-china-india...

"...Staffan Qvist, physicist at Uppsala University, and his co-author Barry Brook, an ecologist and computer modeler at the University of Tasmania, relied on comes from two countries in Europe to prove nuclear energy scaling: Sweden and France. The Swedes began research to build nuclear reactors in 1962 in a bid to wean the country off burning oil for power as well as to protect rivers from hydroelectric dams. By 1972, the first boiling water reactor at Oskarshamn began to host fission and churn out electricity. The cost was roughly $1,400 per kilowatt of electric capacity (in 2005 dollars), which is cheap compared to the $7,000 per kilowatt of electric capacity of two new advanced nuclear reactors being built in the U.S. right now. By 1986, with the addition of 11 more reactors, half of Sweden's electricity came from nuclear power and carbon dioxide emissions per Swede had dropped by 75 percent compared to the peak in 1970...."

The goal won't be reached when we have power companies here in Arizona charging significant surcharges to connect home solar to the the grid. The charges are high enough that even with the cost reductions of solar and incentives the home solar industry has ground to a halt in Salt River Project areas charging $60 a month plus which combined with the less than retail byback per Kw make upgrading to solar a wash vs SRP. My guess is this is a tactic that is or will be used all over.

Thom, I know your opinion of nuclear power is less than favorable but I urge you to look into Liquid Flourine Thorium Reactor technology. It appears to have a lot of positives with few of the negatives of today's reactors. LFTR's use up to 95% of the fuel, are meltdown proof, do not need enormous amounts of water for cooling and may be engineered to use the spent fuel from BWR's currently stored with no real permanent solution for long term use. Thorium is abundantly available being derived from the waste products of rare earth mining. Mining that is no longer done in the US because of the waste disposal problems (waste that could be used in the LFTR's). Rare earth mining is currently the sole province of China (95% of US use imported from China) who is presently stockpiling the waste. China is actively persuing LFTR technology and the the likely scenario is that we will buy energy from China in the future rather than generating it from a safe nuclear technology invented by America 50 years ago and abandoned mostly for political reasons. Elon Musk's Powerwall battery charged by solar should not be overlooked as well. The rate surcharge must be eliminated as well.