The "climate change" industry is worth about $1.5 trillion, with 9 segments and 38 sub-segments, including renewables, green building and hybrid vehicles, and the $1.9B consulting market. Now you know why it's called "green"... Is Climate Change Now Its Own Industry? http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/07/30/377086.htm Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking. The $1.5 trillion global “climate change industry” grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth, according to Climate Change Business Journal. The San Diego, Calif.-based publication includes within that industry nine segments and 38 sub-segments. This encompasses sectors like renewables, green building and hybrid vehicles. That also includes the climate change consulting market, which a recent report by the journal estimates at $1.9 billion worldwide and $890 million in the U.S. (More at above url)
laugh if you want, everybody knows the old style of energy is dying. He who controls energy controls the world. Do you want to bet on tar sands or something else?
Regardless of any climate change, in the long run these technologies may prevent a war over oil resources, and encourage China and India to develop more responsibly.
Actually you are correct the evolution of energy to more "green" sources is inevitable. There are numerous reasons for this including the geo-politics of oil, the declining cost of green technologies, and the future lack of oil & gas availability. Wind, solar, and hydro based energy sources will continue to move forward driven by improving economics and hopefully reasonable government policy. In order for a "green energy" transformation to be success there needs to be a transformation of our energy infrastructure to a micro-grid focused on distributed generation and monitoring -- instead of today's electrical generation build-out based on large energy generation facilities. The first step is to create communities that can serve as models where green energy powers an entire town in a cost efficient manner - one example of this is Kodiak, Alaska where a a green grid including wind, hydro and solar are providing 99.7% of the power for the town with customers paying 13.8 cents per kilowatt hour (which is just above the U.S. average but well below the Alaska average). A next step is the deployment of wide-spread electrical microgrids across the U.S. However government mandates, infrastructure funding via credits, universal net metering requirements and utility competitive changes will be required to drive the existing electrical utilities to support changing from their current macro plant-based electrical grid. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab provides excellent information on how to perform the transformation to move the existing US grid to function with 80% renewables. Unfortunately the shrill "climate change" nonsense put forward by AGW zealots will only work to slow the transition to a green energy infrastructure. It causes government money to be misapplied to crony capitalism and worthless research grants while driving CO2 taxation policies which only serve as a drag on the economy with no useful benefit. it also causes reasonable people to not support moving forward with renewables because all they see is their tax dollars being wasted on worthless "green" nonsense driven by politicians such as Al Gore -- instead of being applied for improving our national energy grid and properly supporting the deployment of green technology.
laugh if you want...In Honduras, there is a whole very well organized black market which sneaks into the wildlife preserve and makes charcoal and smuggles it out and sells it on the street just so people can cook dinner. Man, people are going to fight over energy no matter what kind it is. If we all had free energy, what would be the point of going to war? well....I suppose the next chapter will be the "Water Wars" (would have made a better movie than Water World.)
Coal wasn't used as an energy source until most of Britain had been deforested. People didn't like to use it at first, but eventually it fueled the Industrial Revolution.
true, but look what is happening to coal now. They claim it is now a very clean source of energy if it is burned right. Until you go to eastern Kentucky and West Viginia and see what it takes to get that "clean" coal. Is that really what you want to do with your Daddy's money? Invest it in coal? oh well, there's always a case to be made for the contrarian. When it's all said and done, people like energy more than they like communism or the environment, and will pay anything to keep their iphone running, even if that means burning coal.
Yeah coal... burning coal is what put all the mercury in the oceans. Now that Obama is 8 years into his program to stop that they find that they can burn it cleaner. Fu^k 'em, if they didn't clean it up earlier then their industry needs to die. All the industries that are incapable of being conscientious need to die. Solar is getting better and better all the time. It's the obvious answer. There is enough sun power hitting earth to fuel anything imaginable. Making all the other energy sources expensive is a good way to promote it. Tax Oil some more folks, that shit's gotta go eventually. We can make the roads into solar generators if we want, buildings that provide all their own power from solar are already here. The Mojave Deserts' 25,000 square miles can generate enough electricity to power the whole continent and a lot more... I wouldn't build a house unless it was entirely run from solar panels and I've worked out how to do that in it's entirety... The US is a very stupid place, they build houses without shade and burn stuff to cool them... stupid doesn't begin to describe it. They put solar panels on roofs, convert that dc source to 115 ac to accommodate all the stuff in the house that is built to 19th century needs, the stuff in the house converts it back to DC for internal use... make some shit that runs from solar panels directly morons! Forget the AC shit, it's entirely unnecessary... I can't stand it folks, if inefficiency was brains we'd be geniuses...