"fully renewables-powered civilised future for the human race with a reasonably open mind, they normally come to the conclusion that it simply isn't feasible"

If you attempt to provide RE to reduce carbon you are missing the entire point of renewable. I can't believe it took more than a couple hours to come to that conclusion vs a four year project. RE is most effective on an individual basis not global. Each home and user are different and applying individual RE to those home tailored to the user preference is infinitely more practical. Where I live PV is very practical with all the sunny days per year employing net metering. North Minn not so much.

Who's responsibility is it to reduce carbon emissions the individual or government? Actually both...

It's a very misleading and sensational hitpiece by The Register. It is not an accurate evaluation of the article it purports to review.

People will want to read the original article in the IEEE Spectrum as well as the Google post mortem on their project.

Renewable energy is still key in our future, assuming that we can't achieve fusion power.

It would be a very good assumption that in the public energy consumption markets there will be haves, and have not's.

in the public energy consumption markets...

What, exactly, is that referring to and how does the haves/have nots thing relate to it?

Just sounds like more Republican BS to obfuscate the environmental issue and motivate the largely ignorant masses to approve the Keystone pipeline project because it will create jobs and because global warming was not caused by burning fossil fuels. Sort of like the non-scientific approach of someone telling you that you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist and therefore you should have faith and obey religious doctrines. Of course this has little to do with actual political or religious affiliations. It has always been and will always be about the haves finding a way to control and take advantage of the have nots. And it doesn’t really matter what you believe because it is already too late and you will find out soon enough.

Here's a better lower-spin version of what the google project leaders ACTUALLY said:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

Including:

"We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope—but that doesn’t mean the planet is doomed. As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach. So we’re issuing a call to action. There’s hope to avert disaster if our society takes a hard look at the true scale of the problem and uses that reckoning to shape its priorities."

By choosing to stop the quote at "We now know that to be a false hope..." implies that the folks at The Register have an agenda that they're spinning.

Part of their issue was that they google project folks were initially viewing it as primarily energy supply problem- "Fix the type of energy, fix the problem!", whereas, energy efficiency is still by far the deepest & cheapest well to draw from. This is had already been understood by many who have been looking at it for decades (notably but not exclusively the Rocky Mountain Institute and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.) What was also not well understood by the google analysts was how quickly and how far the cost of PV solar would (and still will) drop.

The folks at the Register also seem to be vaguely referencing Tom Murphy's "Energy Trap" analysis, in their comments:

"Whenever somebody with a decent grasp of maths and physics looks into the idea of a fully renewables-powered civilised future for the human race with a reasonably open mind, they normally come to the conclusion that it simply isn't feasible. Merely generating the relatively small proportion of our energy that we consume today in the form of electricity is already an insuperably difficult task for renewables: generating huge amounts more on top to carry out the tasks we do today using fossil-fuelled heat isn't even vaguely plausible."

...without exactly spelling that analysis out, which relied heavily on energy return on energy investment (EROEI) and pricing of wind & solar that is now way out of date.


(See: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/ )

Note, the EROEI of fracked oil & gas is WELL under that of the current commodity PV solar, and there is plenty of innovation with year-on-year improvement in EROEI of both wind & solar, with other cost (and energy cost) innovations that continue apace. One fly in the ointment is that google bet and bet BIG on a promising thin-film CIGS solar technology (Nanosolar), but was still crushed in the marketplace by Chinese competition (like many other still-promising thin-film technologies) using well-established but lower EROEI silicon technologies. (FirstSolar's CdTe thin film goods are quite competitive on both price & EROEI, but google was not an investor there.)

Efficiency is the first and best step, and obviously so. Even in the relatively wasteful US, in inflation adjusted dollars t productivity has steadily improved on a MMBTU/$GDP basis the 1960s, and that's without really taking energy efficiency very seriously. Energy prices are just one signal to drive efficiency in free market economies, but policy decisions surrounding energy sources also affect determines how quickly things can change. As it stands right now, investing a 100 billion dollars in PV solar and electric cars over the next 15 years buys more passenger miles than investing in tight shale oil, and the investment bankers are onto this fact:

http://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/KC-ESG_Toil%20for%20Oil-1.pdf

Investing it in wind power buys even more passenger miles.

This is due in large part by the much higher efficiency (even with grid & storage losses factored in) of electric motors vs. Rankine cycle internal combustion engines.

At google they were basically buying into the IEA's and EIA's growth curves in total worldwide energy use, and projecting what it would take to do a 1:1 swap using current generation renewables. But those organizations have EXTREMELY poor track records on projecting both the total energy use increases, as well as underestimating the exponent in the growth curves on renewables. (That's particularly the case for the EIA, who can barely predict the past with any accuracy. :-) )

At google they have apparently missed the boat on how the electric power grid is evolving, and how PV solar doesn't even have to compete with gas-fired power at the large-scale generator level to have a huge impact. The lifecycle levelized cost of PV is still above that of combined cycle gas at $4/MMBTU wholesale prices (the current gas-glut type pricing), but is well under the world price for gas (~$10/MMBTU). And in places without the pre-existing grid infrastructure to support a cc-gas plant, local PV micro-grids (batteries included!) is already a cheaper way to go, a fact recognized by the newly elected administration in India, who have promised to bring power (but not necessariliy the grid) to the ~300 million citizens of India who currently do not have access to the grid by Y2020. (The construction of micro-grids by outside financing has led grid operators in some parts of India to finally get off their corrupt greedy asses and finally hook up some villages to the grid, as a countermeasure to the competitive threat of cheap PV.)

Bottom line, the headline is simply wrong, and even the guys at google they were quoting understand that it's a financial-model & policy issue more than a technology issue. You don't replace gigawatt coal plant with a 5 gigawatt PV plant with a bunch of batteries. You replace it with a gigawatt of efficiency improvement, a gigawatt of better grid management, and 30,000 rooftop PV systems on the retail side of the meter (where it's cost effective even at 2014 prices). Peak coal use worldwide has already occurred.

Peak coal in China will happen well before 2020, despite a huge growth rate in power use that will continue.

Peak coal use in India will likely be next year.

Chinese government policy on the electrification of the transportation sector will have a bigger effect on worldwide emissions than any technology breakthroughs on the energy-production end.

The electrification of the transportation sector does not and will not require expansion of the existing large central power station model of the grid in the US. Electricity consumption has been flat to falling for nearly a decade in the US, despite relatively tepid and spotty policy support for efficiency. Even at this weeks low oil crude oil price, it's still cheaper to drive an electric car (on both a marginal and lifecycle basis) than an equivalent sized gas/diesel car and would have a lower net carbon footprint than burning liquid fossil fuels.

Posted By sailawayrb on 24 Nov 2014 12:37 PM
Just sounds like more Republican BS to obfuscate the environmental issue and motivate the largely ignorant masses to approve the Keystone pipeline project because it will create jobs and because global warming was not caused by burning fossil fuels. Sort of like the non-scientific approach of someone telling you that you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist and therefore you should have faith and obey religious doctrines. Of course this has little to do with actual political or religious affiliations. It has always been and will always be about the haves finding a way to control and take advantage of the have nots. And it doesn’t really matter what you believe because it is already too late and you will find out soon enough.

Sun/cosmos is in more control of our weather than the beings living on this rock.

The Global warming argument was created for nothing more than to create higher taxes on energy, which in effect decreases consumption of goods and service. Another side affect will be inflation which drives the markets to higher highs because of the increases in inflation. Who controls our planet resources in 21st century? "Corporations and Governments, the people control nothing"

At some point in the not so far off future the middle class will eventual fall into the nots category just as you can see now in Europe, and the wealthy class will become the next target on the radar.

Why the discussion of the destruction of last and on only great nations on earth left? Because it's their objective, and its being broadcast very clearly! Solar, wind and all that is cool, but it does require energy and natural resources to manufacture and will scale up in cost as they plant their seeds of destruction.  A more important questions is are you prepared for when they come for your guns?

Sun/cosmos is in more control of our weather than the beings living on this rock.

It's correct that the power of the sun is the ultimate source of all the energy we use. The rest of what you said has little to no basis in reality. All the science indicates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are trapping heat in the atmosphere, and slowly raising the temperature to a point at which life as we have experienced it for most of recorded history will change. When that happens, the costs of dealing with the changes, both human and economic, will dwarf the costs of what we might have done to head this off.

The costs of heading it off will likely be cost-negative (=cash positive), not a true burden, given the rate at which efficiency, solar, and wind are being cost-reduced. The cost will be to the companies and shareholders of all of those already known & owned fossil fuel reserves still in the ground that are destined to become stranded assets.

The Energy Post had a more sarcastic take on the pair of google guys stating basically (and I think accurately) that these guys don't really understand energy, energy markets or even how the electric power grid works.

http://www.energypost.eu/google-gave-renewables-hint-dont-know-much-energy/

"Dude! This is WAY more complicated than writing an Android app! Who knew!?! " :-)

(Well, just about everybody who wasn't doing it as something of a paid hobby along side their software development job knew, that's who.)

Posted By Dana1 on 24 Nov 2014 10:26 PM
 The cost will be to the companies and shareholders of all of those already known & owned fossil fuel reserves still in the ground that are destined to become stranded assets.

In this world fundamentals sometimes never pan out as they should. For the majority on this earth have no control over how some outcomes end, for the ones in control manipulate them so it favors their agenda.

fundamentals sometimes never

??

Whatever...

The hopes & dreams of the Australian coal barons are going up in low-carb smoke, as China reduced it's total coal consumption by 6% this year (while continuing to rapidly expand electricity consumption on the back of hydro, wind, & solar), and India cut back imports sharply, with a change in policy to reduce total coal consumption at the same time that they bring electricity to the 300 million Indians who currently have no access to the grid.

The stuff is in the ground, but not all of it is coming up, because other things are demonstrably cheaper even without pricing all of the externalities. And in 10 years PV will be cheaper than ANY other form of energy, given that the 40 year price arc has had a learning curve of about 22%. The learning curve means that the price drops 22% every time the installed base doubles, and the worldwide doubling rate is now shorter than 2 years (and the recent 5 year learning rate has jumped to over 30%, but that isn't likely to last, though there is a tail end chance that it could on technology gains.) What is at grid-retail parity now will be at grid-wholesale parity by 2020.

Unlike nukes, hydro, & thermal coal, there are no significant economies of scale for solar. The price/watt for a 2kw PV system isn't quite 2x that of a centralized giga-watt PV system, which means site-production of power is taking the load off the existing grid structures. While in the short term there is a cost shift to non-PV clients, it does mean that the amount & type of grid infrastructure expansion is changing- and largely shrinking. This is a major distruption in the electricity markets, but it is poised to result in long term energy deflation starting by 2030, according to several financial sector analysts (including Sanford Bernstein, Bloomberg, City Group, and Kepler Cheuvreux.)

The folks at google aren't stupid, but it took them a handful of years to figure out that a few whiz-kids aren't necessarily going to make money in this highly competitive market. But try as they might it's pretty clear they don't see the forest for the trees, not nearly as clearly as the banking sector( who underwrites energy development) does. Google is still investing in the software and networked control innovation side of energy efficiency, but the silicon valley approach to innovation isn't a clear path in energy markets & energy hardware, despite some successes from some of those entrepreneurs. PayPal's Elon Musk seems to have successfully launched Tesla, buillding on creative BUSINESS MODELS more than a straight technology innovation play, and has launched his cousin Lyndon Rive into the PV solar biz on a purely a business model innovation basis with Solar City currently top-dog in the US residential PV market, with a large chunk of commercial PV to boot, but also driving hard at local storage markets for small & medium sized PV. The google folks were stuck (and still are) on the idea that energy is a technology innovation problem, whereas long time observers of scale-able renewables have long understood it to be a business model innovation problem. While technology innovations are good (and ongoing), the existing technology really is good enough, and innovations in financing are driving the market as much or more as policy support is.

No matter what the price of coal or natural gas is, it can't compete with zero marginal cost on low lifecycle cost solar on the retail side of the meter. The PV party is just getting started. It's still a low single-digit fraction of the worldwide power sources, but it's rapidly turning into a tsunami that is crushing the traditional utility business model. There will be winners & losers in the transformation, but among the losers will be the fossil fuel extraction biz.

Your power logic is rock solid Dana, but power politics always trumps power logic…

“A more important question is are you prepared for when they come for your guns?”

Yes, absolutely! Around our parts, folks DIY build their own AR-15s and AR-10s from scratch. Google “80% lower receivers” sometime. I heard about a block party workshop not too long ago where they broke the local 350 AR build weekend record. I would guess that there are at least 10+ ghost ARs per person in our area…so I think folks are very well prepared.

What many people don't get yet is the inevitability of solar winning the price wars, it's only a matter of when, but it will be soon. As hard as some are fighting it, there is no doubt that PV will eventually win.

Whether the incumbents can hold on and own all/most of those resources (or contracts) as Georgia Power is trying to do remains to be seen. But 20 minutes into the future grid-defection will become viable & rational for many (as it is right now in Hawaii and Australia), which has the potential of kicking off the "utility death spiral". If grid defection becomes the standard model, that's a disaster for everyone- it's a lousy allocation of resources that makes it more expensive (PV owner and grid customer alike.) The incumbents are going to have to write-down their stranded assets, in man cases, but it could get ugly before that happens.

The total re-write of grid regulations that NY is undergoing right now is precisely to head off the death-spiral spectre, and quickly evolve the NY-ISO electric grid in to a transactional highway for willing power buyers & sellers than a regulated monopoly. They're only a few months into the process, but we'll know better how it works out by the end of next summer. By 2020 there will be several quite different models of grid operation happening in the US, with different pricing & cost structures. But when retail electricity prices hit Australia rates, the lid will be blowing off the can in those areas that gouge private grid tied PV, since that's clearly in grid-defection territory. Supporting the financial models of those utilities that over-built centralized fossil plant capacity with a shrinking pool of ratepayers just isn't viable.

David Crane, CEO of NRG (the largest independent power generator in the US, with lots of thermal coal & nuke assets) clearly sees the writing on the wall with solar, and has opted to be the disruptor rather than waiting to become the disrupted, going after both commercial & residential rooftops. Duke Energy is buying up PV like a drunken sailor on leave hoping to avoid getting crushed by the wave of zero-marginal cost competition.

Electricity demand in the US is flat to falling. The business plans of most utility need growth over the next 2-5 decades to be viable without raising rates. Something IS going to have to give, in the face of ever cheaper totally scalable PV. It's better to let the stockholders & bond holders of those over-built utilities take the hit and move on rather than continue to pay for carbon emitting assets that are over priced and not really needed. They may be needed to keep the lights on right now, but many won't be in 2030, which is WAY too close a time frame for the owners of those assets. Right now aging coal plant operators that are running very low capacity factors due to their inefficiency are able to stay alive on "capacity payments" in regions where there are capacity markets, but even that will dry up if FERC order 745 is allowed to go forward (it just lost in the DC district court, but is under appeal), which had allowed "demand response" aggregators to bid into the capacity markets, driving those revenues WAY down. The argument apparently accepted by the court was that since turning stuff off isn't the same as generating power (even though it has the same or better effect on grid capacity & reliablity) it should not be allowed to compete in a capacity market. This is flawed logic, and that type of thinking is standing in the way if higher grid reliability at lower cost, which is why it's being appealed.

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/appeals-court-grants-stay-on-decision-to-overturn-ferc-order-745/323973/

In markets with falling demand (USA, Canada,Europe) solar and efficiency are already winning in the big picture, if not every battle. In growing markets renewables are either dominating now, or will be by 2020. This IS happening, whether the energy incumbents like it (or have planned for it) or not. As awareness grows (amongst utility operators & ratepayer alike ) that it really is inevitable, it may even accelerate.