[extropy-chat] Energy & Global Warming [was: Partisans and EP]

[Robert Bradbury]

The NY Times has an article today about a soon to be released study from the
EPRI (the voice of the electrical industry) that points out how, even with
optimistic assumptions, it may be very difficult to reduce CO2 emissions
from electricity generation sources (coal and gas)  below their 1990 levels
by 2030.  Now of course given where it is coming from it should be taken
with a grain of salt -- but it does seem to point out how clearly there
needs to be significantly more political leadership to get American's
focused on this topic.

The more interesting aspect of this is that they see renewable energy as
rising from 2% to 6.7% by 2030.  That seems flawed to me.  If the government
mandated it I suspect we could take all non-city based residential energy
requirements (e.g. suburbia) off grid in a decade.  There is *not* a lack of
silicon, in contrast to uranium, if we simply decided to use it.  I think
residential electricity consumption is ~1/3 of the total but if someone has
better numbers feel free to correct me.

Now, of course the question is "Does this really matter?"
What are the odds that we will *not* have robust MNT by 2030?

Robert

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/business/15carbon.html
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