This is a new series we are begining.
It deals both with economics and climate change.
It is on the economics of solar energy.
Its future as the alternative to fossil fuel & nuclear energy.
We believe it can happen.
We are seeing and feeling it happening.
The process has begun.
A lot of hard work has been done.
Medium size capacities from 300 to 500 MW solar energy units are today being set up.
Only the scaling up of capacities remains to be done.
This must attain momentum.
The economics and volumes must grow quickly, to make it cheaper .
We must reach the critical point....... and quickly
We must scuttle the efforts of the conventional energy producers to confuse the issues,
term it as costly, a expensive proto type...... still on the drawing board
and hog the funding and blessings of our powerful governments
and eventually divert it to other alternatives....
like CCS, the Carbon Capture & Storage technology,
that is even mischievously called it the Clean Coal Technology
So as we begin this argument we call it " a concept paper "
This is a the begining of a long series of arguments that will take more than 20 posting.
We invite the fossil fuel and other lobbies to enter the discussion if they wish.
Show us why the world governments must go for expensive Clean coal CCS technology.
Why expensive resources must be put in solutions which cannot be mass produced,
within the available global resource base and energy requirements.
To start our dicussion we go back 40 years from where the analytics of climate change began.
The analytics of climate change began with a debate among environmentalists to measure and quantify the effect of climate change in the seventies. American ecologists Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren who created the first mathematical concepts that equated human consumption
to climate change called it the IPAT equation. The equation basically is an easily understood thumbrule for the common man , that relates the impact of consumption to human growth
The equation was I = PAT
where I is the Impact of human activity is a product of P x A x T
where P is the Population of the world (currently 7 billion)
A is the level of affluence, that is the per capita GDP of this world population. ( currently $ 8000)
T is the technology or the carbon emission effect of technology in producing energy.
(currently 0.5 Tonnes of CO2 per $ 1000 of resources consumed )
Using this simplistic equation we find I = 7 billion x 8 x 0.5 = 28 billion Tonnes of Co2
The safe limit as per the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is only 5 billion tonnes of Co2 emission , or 450 parts per million carbon content by 2050
How to achieve this?
By reducing population ....... highly unlikely
By reducing consumption...... difficult as politicians adore the economics of growth
By improving technology...... Yes, but only if we choose correctly and move quickly.
What is the correct technology or technologies to choose ?
In our next posting we shall try to simplify and explain the relevant technologies & the economics of viability, profitibilty and control dynamics in the global energy markets.
We could be wrong. Tell us if we are & why? We encourage diverse opinion even if it is from commercially interested groups opposed to our thinking.
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